Nerf grav/tracer omg!

[shoreu]

Force Speed, In-combat Stealth, Stun and run. Line of Sight.

 

Try using ANY of these strategies. PLEASE.USE.ONE. Otherwise EVERYONE who hates grav round/tracer missle just keep standing still while they shoot you with it.

 

I have no sympathy for ANY of you who can't do anything but attack another player head on who you already know can spam 1 attack and kill you. Common sense is a feat many don't put skillpoints in.

yeah jk's/warriors only have los and that none of those are always active stop trying to defend your class has the nerf hammer incoming:p

 

EDIT: and when you get nerfed i will make sure to have no sympathy for you.

Edited January 30, 2012 by shoreu

[BrandonReio]

I wish they they would allow for grav rounds and tracer missles stacking ability to be "cured" im a commando medic and my Field Aid ability is suppose to cure Tech and Physical effects well this is a tech spells that grants a tech buff so why cant it be dispelled like everything else.

[genesiser]

I wish they they would allow for grav rounds and tracer missles stacking ability to be "cured" im a commando medic and my Field Aid ability is suppose to cure Tech and Physical effects well this is a tech spells that grants a tech buff so why cant it be dispelled like everything else.

 

Have you ever actually looked at your damage reduction before and after the debuff is on you? With 5 stacks you lose like 3% dmg reduction. That'd be a waste of gcd to cleanse it off you.

[krameriffic]

The class needs more variety. You have like 4 attacks, 3 of which are on 15 second CDs. You've got nothing up your sleeve as a commando/merc. You get a knockback, a stun and a 25% DR shield on a fairly long CD. My sorcerer can bubble, sprint, stun, insta-whirlwind, KB, ranged interrupt, and force pull. You have so many tools for PvP as other classes. If you get in a commando's face they can HIB, demolition round then spam hammer shot. It's so easy to stay on a snared commando and bring them down quickly and shut down their primary attack.

 

There's a reason why sorcerers consistently do 600k+ damage 100k+ healing in Void Stars: it's because that class is really strong in the hands of a good player. Gunnery commando is a class with a low skill floor, but an equally low skill ceiling. There's just nothing you can do to distinguish yourself other than shoot a bunch of grav rounds. Sure, a sorcerer can just shoot force lightning all game long, but I can guarantee you won't see a good performance out of them if they just do that and nothing else.

[Narfwak]

The only change that needs to be made is for grav round and tracer missile to be considered ranged attacks and not "tech" abilities that ignore defense.

[Danakar]

Wow, I'd love to inspect that Commando who apparently can do a consistent 11k on a single Grav Round. Or 7k, or 5k, or 4k for that matter.

 

The only way I can get up to 5k is when I get a crit after finally getting 5 stacks of Gravity Vortex on a target. So that means I had to remain stationary with my target in plain sight and within 30 meters just afking for about 3 shots over the course of 6-8 seconds and then shooting a Demolition Round to said target (that also needs to crit) and is not walking around with a ton of Expertise on PvP gear.

 

And you know what? I only get those numbers because I only focused on getting Crit and Surge on all my PvE gear.

 

So I'm an immobile turret in PvE gear without any form of expertise rating and require a full 10 seconds without getting stunned/interrupted/LoS'd/knocked back/etc before my damage becomes decent.

 

In PvP I'm lucky to even get 1 Grav Round off as people just keep getting out of range or knocking me off platforms, interrupting me or keeping me stunlocked with lightning. So guess why I'm not doing any PvP at all! It is because a Gunnery specced Commando just plain sucks when doing PvP.

 

Maybe the OP should talk a little with Gunnery Commando's first to get to know how they work instead of crying for nerfs the moment he/she gets shot down in a battlezone wearing PvE armor in a PvP environment for just standing in the open with no clear knowledge on how to use interrupts/stuns. Personally if the OP was already crying about Gunnery Commando's; we'd probably see suicide threads soon after he/she meets up with an Assault Specialist.

 

1 wonder button, yeah right. In PvE bossfights, I shoot 3x Grav Round, follow up with Full Auto (if it procs), then Demolition Round, then shoot 2 more Grav Rounds in order to get the full 5 stacks of Charged Barrel before firing a High Impact Bolt. In PvP I'm happy to get just one Grav Round off after using a Cryo Grenade. But more often than not I find myself using Hammer Shot while trying to run away from Operatives and Inquisitors or trying to keep Sith Warriors from jumping at me and pounding me into oblivion.

 

Instead of nerfs, let's first make Full Auto and Mortar Volley working the same way as the BH's mirror abilities. At present time the Gunnery Commando is gimped compared to its Imperial mirror-class with a very poor success rating in a PvP environment. The only thing we're apparently good at is defending a remote console on the Alderaan WZ that nobody bothers with.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Danakar

[genesiser]

The only change that needs to be made is for grav round and tracer missile to be considered ranged attacks and not "tech" abilities that ignore defense.

 

It does kinetic dmg. Doesn't armor reduce dmg of kinetic dmg?

[Lady_Alyria]

It does kinetic dmg. Doesn't armor reduce dmg of kinetic dmg?

 

Yes it does. Considering the entire point of the ability is it reduces armor with each attack, it would be quite silly of it to ignore armor. Do people even read what these abilities do before they flip?

[Ithkrul]

After playing melee in this game, I pretty much think everyone is a 1-button wunderkind

[GeckoOBac]

there is this little thing call a cooldown oh wait you don't have one so just keep spamming away:cool:

 

Interrupt. 4 sec CD on the main skill we need to get all the damage boosts and procs. Doesn't give resolve so you can just stun us after the CD wears off. While stunned you can either pound on us or run away to take distance and jump on us after the stun wears off, interrupting once again. CD on your hard interrupt should be mostly over now, recast that. After the cd wears off for the second time, we still won't have full resolve. Enjoy your force choke. By now the commando is mostly dead and you have suffered almost no damage.

 

TL;DR: Learn to Play?

Edited January 30, 2012 by GeckoOBac

[HBninjaX]

After playing melee in this game, I pretty much think everyone is a 1-button wunderkind

 

orly?

 

give the Marauder or Sentinel a whirl and get back to us

Edited January 30, 2012 by HBninjaX

[GeckoOBac]

orly?

 

give the Marauder or Sentinel a whirl and get back to us

 

I think that was exactly his point. After having played a melee char, every other class seems to him like a 1 button wunderkind

[Mapex]

The problem with Tracer/Grav is that not one but TWO vital procs depend on spamming it. The reason people spam these abilities is because they need two 5x stack procs because the talents demand it.

 

If Tracer Lock/Commando equivalent, the one that increases the damage of Rail Shot/High Impact Bolt against the target, procced off a blaster attack instead, then these two classes would not be spamming Tracer/Grav 5 times then Rail Shotting/HIBing you in the face for tons of damage. They'd have to mix it up with other attacks.

 

That solves the boringness aspect. After this change then it would make sense to analyze the Arsenal/Gunnery spec's DPS and tweak accordingly. For a spammable attack with a lot of utility (armor shred), Tracer/Grav hits too hard whereas Power Shot doesn't seem to do nearly as much.

[Nutrii]

ITT OP is an idiot. You HAVE to spam Tracer Missile. Tracer Spam gives you heat reduction stacks on the target which gives your Rail shot/Heatseeker more pewpew. Heat Reduction from Tracer is required to use Rail Shot.

 

Basically we're forced to use Tracer Missile as Arsenal. Seeing people QQ about how much we spam it makes me facepalm SO HARD because of how dumb they are.

[Lyability]

I just wanted to say thank you to all the stupid people in this thread, especially the OP. When ever I have a bad day, I can always come to the forums and see that I have so much to be thankful for, like having more brain cells than the OP, it instantly brings a smile to my face.

 

And for you guys who cannot kill a commando, wow you really have to suck. I am the epitome of a glass canon. Yeah, I do damage, no where near as high you idiots are complaining about, but for the most part, you idiot imps leave me alone on the battlefield. Its not my fault you don't target me, I mean, I'm standing still, in the middle of the field, with this big *** gun firing ever 3 seconds, and you run by wondering why I'm pelting you for 700-1k dmg at lvl 30. And for the imps that do target me, and kill me quickly after, thank you for attempting to play the game instead of crying in the forum like a sally (OP).

 

Thanks again for the lolz.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Lyability

[TimeIIDie]

Can't honestly speak to the overall issue of commandos/mercs but as a fullspec shieldtech they are my nemesis in battlefields. The complete bypassing of our shield abilities with grav spam turns us into a regular squishy with a greater hp count and makes any battle tricky.

 

1vs1 I can take down either with a concerted effort and my CDs up, usually along these lines, 40-50 secs fight;

 

hit by grav round down to 15k health

locate commando

leap to him preventing 2nd grav round

hit rocket punch commando to 11k health

knocked back

hit by grav round down to 13k health

run in, interrupt grav round

flame blast to reduce damage, commando to 10k health

electro dart to stun commando

rail shot + rocket punch + flamethrower commando to 6k health at stun end

commando hits shield

interrupt grav round

heat blast to keep heat low, shield negates attack to 300ish damage

grav round hits on critical, down to 9k health

rocket punch, commando to 4k health

commando swallows a health pot back to 7k health

carbonite commando to interrupt grav round

pop my shield and kolto to get 1k health back

grav round hits, down to 9k with shield negation of the attack

rail shot commando to 6k

knocked back, leap in again

hit by grav round while i'm knocked away, health to 7k

Swallow health pot back to 10k health

interrupt grav round

rocket punch, commando to 4k

hit by grav round on critical, health to 7k

flame blast to reduce damage, commando to 3k health

Commando uses heal, back to 5k health

rail shot, commando to 4k health

interrupt grav round

heat blast as starting to struggle with heat, commando to 3.5k health

hit carbonite, interrupts grav round

vent heat to get back to a viable level

interrupt grav round

rocket punch commando to 1.5k health

hit by grav round, health to 5k

flame blast commando to 500 health

knocked back

hit by grav round on critical, health to 2k

jump back in to kill commando.

 

I've had to go through all that to kill someone that is barely doing much more than grav rounds and his shield/knockback skills. I've used 8 or 9 skills to keep up with what is essentially one main skill spammed repeatedly with an occassional health or knockback. Of course given the time this takes, it's rare that it ever remains a 1vs1, and more often than not there will be more additions to the fight. Against more competent mercs/commandos i'll be worn down even with all my cooldowns as they'll use their other skills, and burn me down, this is what should happen. It shouldn't be though that a class played completely wrong is able to push a fight out that long, even against a tank, when they are interrupting correctly. Having a short cast time is an effective defensive skill already for the commando/merc, as it prevents channeled abilities being utilised at all in a fight with them (notice no unload or flamethrower through most of that fight scenario), the fact it does such hefty damage on a short timer is just frustrating on top of that.

 

The fix to it isn't even that complex, raise the cast time to 2secs rather than 1.5, it will be enough that someone can interrupt and land two insta-cast attacks before the commando can fully cast grav round again. That small a change would make a big difference to the whole fight mechanic while not affecting the commando/mercs chances of eating up inattentive opponents. They'd still have the immunity to channeled skills caused by a short cast time (you might get hit by a channel but you'll have hit them for 2-3k at the same time, a good tradeoff) but they'd be more controllable by good interrupt usage.

[Danakar]

The complete bypassing of our shield abilities with grav spam turns us into a regular squishy with a greater hp count and makes any battle tricky.

 

Only quoting this portion as I do not think this is related to Grav Round. Can't be certain here, but in general it seems there currently is an issue with 'tank' characters in PvP where their shield does not appear to function as intended.

[genesiser]

.

 

The fix to it isn't even that complex, raise the cast time to 2secs rather than 1.5, it will be enough that someone can interrupt and land two insta-cast attacks before the commando can fully cast grav round again. That small a change would make a big difference to the whole fight mechanic while not affecting the commando/mercs chances of eating up inattentive opponents. They'd still have the immunity to channeled skills caused by a short cast time (you might get hit by a channel but you'll have hit them for 2-3k at the same time, a good tradeoff) but they'd be more controllable by good interrupt usage.

 

Your "fix" has a broken supporting argument. First off you say, "2 sec cast time so someone can interrupt and land 2 insta cast attacks before the merc can deal damage with grav round again". There are two problems with that. The first problem is your interrupt is off the gcd and it can lock out that skill for 4 seconds (6 if talented for it as a sage). That means that when you hit your interrupt you can hit not twice, but almost 4 times. (4 sec lockout +1.5 sec cast, total of 5.5 seconds, 4 gcd moves = 6 seconds)

 

The second problem with making it a two second cast is instead of taking 7.5 seconds to build up 5 stacks of the buff, it'd take 10 seconds. Not only that, but it would significantly lower the dps of the build. They would literally have to increase the damage of each cast by ~33% because the cast time at two seconds is now 33% slower. Once they did that people would really complain because they'd say, "OMG mercs do so much damage now, just look how hard his grav round hit me for, nerf nerf nerf it!"

Edited January 30, 2012 by genesiser

[krameriffic]

ITT OP is an idiot. You HAVE to spam Tracer Missile. Tracer Spam gives you heat reduction stacks on the target which gives your Rail shot/Heatseeker more pewpew. Heat Reduction from Tracer is required to use Rail Shot.

 

Basically we're forced to use Tracer Missile as Arsenal. Seeing people QQ about how much we spam it makes me facepalm SO HARD because of how dumb they are.

 

That's the point. The class is badly designed to revolve entirely around a single ability. It's like vanilla WoW kind of design. Sorcerer falls into the same category to some degree, with all viable specs revolving around force lightning spam for wrath procs.

[DarthBloodloss]

Its 1 tree, on 1 advanced class.

 

Should they add in more utility and more varied types of attacks? Whats the problem here? People die to Arsenal Mercs too often?

 

Merc are sitting there staring at cooldowns and proc effects. We are not facerolling the keyboard during combat. As a matter of fact its easy to miss chat or things going on in front of us because we are staring at the cooldown of Heatseeker and Railshot, and watching for Unload to proc.

 

Yes we have 4 main attacks in the rotation. No matter what you do, 1 build has to have the lowest amount. Change ours and there will be a new guy with "only" 5 attacks in the rotation.

[krameriffic]

Its 1 tree, on 1 advanced class.

 

Should they add in more utility and more varied types of attacks? Whats the problem here? People die to Arsenal Mercs too often?

 

Merc are sitting there staring at cooldowns and proc effects. We are not facerolling the keyboard during combat. As a matter of fact its easy to miss chat or things going on in front of us because we are staring at the cooldown of Heatseeker and Railshot, and watching for Unload to proc.

 

Yes we have 4 main attacks in the rotation. No matter what you do, 1 build has to have the lowest amount. Change ours and there will be a new guy with "only" 5 attacks in the rotation.

 

Oh man, you have to watch 2 CDs on two instant cast abilities. The proc that takes Unload off CD is also very easy to see on your character, you don't even have to pay attention to see it. It's not like wrath and lightning barrage on sorcerers which have tiny, virtually unnoticeable visual effects. You have to watch your buff bar to see those proc.

 

That's another thing they should have stolen from WoW large aural and visual cues in the UI on ability procs.

[DarthBloodloss]

The proc that takes Unload off CD is also very easy to see on your character, you don't even have to pay attention to see it. It's not like wrath and lightning barrage on sorcerers which have tiny, virtually unnoticeable visual effects. You have to watch your buff bar to see those proc.

 

Incorrect. It doesn't show "on your character". You have to watch the buff bar.

[Vesperr]

Its 1 tree, on 1 advanced class.

 

Should they add in more utility and more varied types of attacks? Whats the problem here? People die to Arsenal Mercs too often?

 

Merc are sitting there staring at cooldowns and proc effects. We are not facerolling the keyboard during combat. As a matter of fact its easy to miss chat or things going on in front of us because we are staring at the cooldown of Heatseeker and Railshot, and watching for Unload to proc.

 

Yes we have 4 main attacks in the rotation. No matter what you do, 1 build has to have the lowest amount. Change ours and there will be a new guy with "only" 5 attacks in the rotation.

 

About CDs and procs - every class has to watch for CDs to be effective (people learn to feel their CDs eventually) and some classes are more proc heavy than others (assassins for one, pyrotech is more proc dependant too) and these classes also have to watch battlefield and stay close to their target to do any damge. The chat thing... well, its great that you have time to read it, really.

 

As for rotation (actually its nice to see merc using more than 1 button) - its 1 skills thats way too good to be true but there it is. Just look at snipers, they have the same energy mechanics but no skill for 8-16 heat/energy that does great damage, is spammable, ignores 55% of armor (after 3 shots) and cant be deflected/shielded because its a tech attack, its just too good, magically good, thats why its the magic missile. It just asks to be nerfed.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Vesperr

[HBninjaX]

Yes we have 4 main attacks in the rotation. No matter what you do, 1 build has to have the lowest amount. Change ours and there will be a new guy with "only" 5 attacks in the rotation.

 

compared to marauders with about 8 attacks, in addition to the plethora of defensive abilities that are necessary for success and you're talking about 20 abilities all together to perform roughly on par

Edited January 31, 2012 by HBninjaX

[Sovietik]

Grav/Tracer is a "builder" and so it needs to be spammable but I agree that it does too much damage.

 

However, this skill is needed by essence because of the way the spec is built : what should be done, is to "nerf" the interest to spam it on a target :

 

- Make it does less and less interesting to spam it = Grav/Tracer dommage reduced by X% by vortex/heat sig on the target. For example X=10% so with full stack -50% dmg, no interest at all to continue using it.

 

- "Compensate" by sligtly increasing dmg on finishers (15sec CD) : Demo Round/Heatseeker Missile. It"s already boosted by 5% for each Vortex/Heat sig => Make it 8% for example.

 

- Finally, fix the buggy full Auto animation (1sec delay + 2 tics only) for Commando

 

 

These fixes are easier to manage as it doesn't involve a full overhaul of the spec.