cdlesias Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 I'm currently leveling an operative and am 39 with 12 points in concealment and the rest in medic, I was wondering if going full concealment or lethality at 50 will allow me to do competetive dps in a PVE setting to that of other classes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tegularious Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 For some reason or another, when guilds advertise for healers or DPS on my server they dont want operative healers or DPS. Specifically leave the class out. They do want sniper DPS... Due to the patch that nerf'd us, it left a stigma on the playerbase thats not been rectified by bioware. They simply did a knee jerk nerf to quell PvP QQ'ers without even considering what impact it had on PvE. (Personally, I think my DPS as full concealment is on par, but consider myself a skilled mmo raiding experienced player though, I squeeze every drop of DPS I can). Healing, I can't comment on our healing tree as I have not tried it. But from what I hear and can see from my own current abilities.... we are a sub par healer. Healing mechanics are not fun and we have afew broken ability issues. Like diagnostic scan being useless etc. (Yes you can put talents in it, but still seems weak). I'm not knocking our class.....just seems to be my experience I have encountered first hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasfanboy Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 I'm currently leveling an operative and am 39 with 12 points in concealment and the rest in medic, I was wondering if going full concealment or lethality at 50 will allow me to do competetive dps in a PVE setting to that of other classes? Right now, the only metric we have to go on is PVP scoreboards, which don't reflect PVE viability perfectly. There's a sense than Operative DPS for both specs is low compared to other classes among the community. My gut tells me it's not as bad as forum posters say it is, but still not where it should be compared to other melee specs. A common problem for melee DPS in all MMOs is that heavy movement, target switching, and knockbacks hurt melee far more than they hurt ranged. Most melee specs get abilities to offset those disadvantages somewhat, usually in the form of speed bursts, charges, or leaps. Operatives get none of those things, and it's a major liability. Concealment is a pure melee spec (all the hardest-hitting abilities are melee range), and if you're not behind the boss your two best attacks are unavailable to you. Lethality is a wierd hybrid spec when it comes to range, with some abilties usable at 30 meters, some at 10, and your TA generator at 4. As a result, when you're running back into position, you have more options. You're also not as dependent upon Backstab in your main rotation, so in fights where you can't park behind the enemy, your DPS doesn't suffer as much. For flashpoints, Concealment is fine, but you'll likely see much better results with Lethality in Operations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuixupu Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 From some of the websites that really try to calculate pve IA dps, I don't get the impression we are in THAT bad of a spot, even after the nerf. I honestly think people are making very exaggerated assumptions. Yes, we definitely have issues with those bosses that run around and do knockbacks, since we have no proper gap closer. That's probably my biggest frustration with the class. However, when I do hard mode FPs and Ops, I don't feel I am gimpy at all. I've been through this in other MMOs when some class/spec gets stigmatized, and there are always players who are just really good or really bad no matter what they are playing. Without combat logs, it's hard to prove our individual worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rahl_Windsong Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 The thing is you can run from any fight probably better then any other class, so I guess you could label us the get away artists or something like that... lol Lots of times in PvE what I will do is kill a few, run away come back and kill the rest. I do this pretty much every boss I have to kill solo because it just makes the fight so much more managable. So you go in tranq the boss, take out his trash, wake up the boss and kill him. Or if you really have to you can use your cloak come back completely fresh and kill the boss that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achromatis Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 The thing is you can run from any fight probably better then any other class, so I guess you could label us the get away artists or something like that... lol Lots of times in PvE what I will do is kill a few, run away come back and kill the rest. I do this pretty much every boss I have to kill solo because it just makes the fight so much more managable. So you go in tranq the boss, take out his trash, wake up the boss and kill him. Or if you really have to you can use your cloak come back completely fresh and kill the boss that way. Ah but theres the problem for group/raid PvE, all our "getting away" abilities are meaningless. And thats a problem because the class is built around stealth, which means nothing in a boss fight. No gap closer just compounds the already existing weakness of being a melee DPS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasfanboy Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Ah but theres the problem for group/raid PvE, all our "getting away" abilities are meaningless. And thats a problem because the class is built around stealth, which means nothing in a boss fight. No gap closer just compounds the already existing weakness of being a melee DPS. The fact that the Concealment talent tree is built around stealth shouldn't impact DPS all that much. The tree is based heavily on WoW's rogue class, which manages quite well with a similar setup. It would only take a few tweaks to "fix" the inherent problems with the spec. Chief among these would be a gap closer, but I'd like to see the healing penalty removed from Cloaking Screen entirely for all specs as well. I'd also like to see a bona-fide DPS cooldown that isn't just an energy surge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trosli Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 1. PVE dps: As concealment spec I draw agro constantly from HM bosses, commonly with a sniper and bounty hunter in the group. I need to meter my output and use countermeasures constantly to avoid death. 2. Getting away: Cloaking screen works wonders, even on HM-level mobs, champions, and bosses. If something goes wrong when figuring out a specific HM fight (like the proper method to hit HK47's screens so he doesn't get the uber "Slaughter Programs Loaded" buff). It keeps the repair bill down because everyone else dies getting chased to the zoneline while I cloak, hide in the corner, and wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auxili Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 rogues had 2x the utility and tools that scoundrels/operatives have, and even rogues are underpowered in groups fights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spatzimaus Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Ah but theres the problem for group/raid PvE, all our "getting away" abilities are meaningless. And thats a problem because the class is built around stealth, which means nothing in a boss fight. No gap closer just compounds the already existing weakness of being a melee DPS. Exactly this. In big raids or against the tough hardmode bosses, we have to stand in melee and just dish out sustained damage, and we're just not built for that. Being able to run away, do crowd control, or spot-heal just isn't very useful when you're in a 16-man operation facing a boss that does PBAoE attacks to any nearby melee types. On the bright side we'll have more chances to Acid Blade our Backstabs, but our damage rotation pretty much reduces to Shiv, Lacerate, AB+BS, and the occasional Corrosive Dart or Overload Shot, and that assumes we can stay in melee range and position ourselves out of any cone attacks. Compared to the DPS other classes can do, especially at range, we're not very good. And then there's The Gimmick. Most operation bosses have one, some specific thing that needs to be done to beat them, and we're HORRIBLE at dealing with that sort of thing. This enemy gets an aura that prevents anyone from meleeing him, that one summons adds, and so on. I'm not saying we can't contribute, but compared to a Sorcerer... yeah, forget about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuixupu Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 rogues had 2x the utility and tools that scoundrels/operatives have, and even rogues are underpowered in groups fights. 2x? That's an exaggeration. I'm guessing you're speaking from a pvp perspective, but from a pve perspective, I feel a lot more useful as an Operative than I ever did as a rogue. The only thing unique I ever brought was the very, very rare lockpicking or trap disabling ability in certain situations. At least Operatives have a unique buff, a battle rez, an in-combat cc with no cooldown, and healing abilities. I would have loved all those things as a rogue. Rogues did get a lot more over time. I remember when Sap had to be talented to be useful and only worked on humanoids, blind lasted a few seconds, we had no AOE at all, no Tricks of the Trade, a lot of mobs/bosses were immune to poison, and Mutilate only worked behind mobs. But even in those days I managed to be #1 in dps a lot. The thing that rogues have that Ops need is a gap closer. Sprint or shadowstep plz? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinworms Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 The dps is fine. But if I pump out roughly equal dps to a ranged class, why bring me instead of a ranged (assuming you have an op healer for the buff). I take more damage as a melee, am more squishy than anyone else, my aoe sucks, and have no closer. I guess the good news is that nothing currently in the game pve is all that hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuixupu Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 1. You're not more squishy than everyone else. 2. There's only a few situations I've seen where extra melee damage range isn't avoidable. There's also instances where ranged gets targeted rather than melee (i.e. forget which boss that is that throws rocks at ranged) 3. For AOE, having orbital strike up and grenade + carbine burst hardly sucks. I do wish the cast time of of OS was shorter though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skrill Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) Not sure why Operatives get so much hate in the DPS department. I think most of it is just parrot syndrome....people on the forums just repeating what they read in another thread over and over and over again. We really seem to shine in fights where burst DPS is key. We may not be the best sustained over-time DPS but on things like Soa/Puzzle Boss in Karragaa(sp) I think we shine as the best class to have around. When we stim up/surge up/burn our energy all at once we can really put out some serious damage (if not the best damage) and in fights where you are given certain windows to DPS we are a huge asset. Ive cleared every single encounter in game and at no point did I feel like a burden to my raid and ive had randoms specifically send me tells asking for me to come DPS hardmodes for them. ....also I'm not squishy at all. I top at out at just over 20k HP's fully buffed...I rarely die to anything in PvE unless we are wiping and being able to heal myself in a clutch is a huge boon to the healers in our group. As with most melee DPS classes we are extremely gear-dependent so I think thats where alot of the QQ is coming from....when I relic/stim I can get my surge rating to 99.5 and crit rating to 46%ish not including the talented crit bonuses and set-bonuses. I can really go berserk-beast mode when necessary for like 15-20 seconds. Edited February 7, 2012 by skrill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoppaE Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I would say that the learning curve is def. a bit steeper for an operative. In order to increase the survivability of an op in hardmodes we depend much more on gear than the other classes imo. As a class, we are, out of the gate, the least in DPS and the most squishy and only through serious perseverance can we get the items we need to gear up well enough to dish out decent DPS and survivability. As far as PVP, 1 on 1, we can be pretty much a handful for anyone. When properly geared. But when it comes to gap closers, we are probably one of the weaker classes in game. And the cool down on cloaking screen is WAY too long imo. There's definitely a lot of work left to be done on this class though. IMO. We need a knockback and a more viable ranged DPS in the lethality tree. As well as a bit more survivability for those who are in the concealment tree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaramukhti Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) Not sure why Operatives get so much hate in the DPS department. I think most of it is just parrot syndrome....people on the forums just repeating what they read in another thread over and over and over again. We really seem to shine in fights where burst DPS is key. We may not be the best sustained over-time DPS but on things like Soa/Puzzle Boss in Karragaa(sp) I think we shine as the best class to have around. When we stim up/surge up/burn our energy all at once we can really put out some serious damage (if not the best damage) and in fights where you are given certain windows to DPS we are a huge asset. Ive cleared every single encounter in game and at no point did I feel like a burden to my raid and ive had randoms specifically send me tells asking for me to come DPS hardmodes for them. ....also I'm not squishy at all. I top at out at just over 20k HP's fully buffed...I rarely die to anything in PvE unless we are wiping and being able to heal myself in a clutch is a huge boon to the healers in our group. As with most melee DPS classes we are extremely gear-dependent so I think thats where alot of the QQ is coming from....when I relic/stim I can get my surge rating to 99.5 and crit rating to 46%ish not including the talented crit bonuses and set-bonuses. I can really go berserk-beast mode when necessary for like 15-20 seconds. I agree with this post. Honestly, I am amazed that so many people feel Operatives are not viable dps in PvE. I am specced Lethality. In PvE content - especially on bosses and/or powerful single target enemies - Lethality can hit like an angry God's hammer if you set it up right. If I keep my poisons up continuously, use weakening blast when available, keep my stim boost up, throw in some backstabs when available, then cull the ish out of a boss, I actually have to watch to make sure I don't peel aggro completely away from the tank. I may not have the aoe of other classes, but on single targets, only geared up Marauders can stay with me over a prolonged fight, in my experience. When you add in IA utility (multitude of ccs, shield probes to help out heals, evasion for emergencies, battle rez, etc.), Operative is a very viable dps class in PvE. Like I said, in my own personal experience, Marauders are the one class that can match my single target damage - but they have little of an IA's utility. I can't really speak on the Concealment side of Operative dps, but as for Lethality, I am doing better than fine. I feel confident in saying Lethality dps, when built right, is up there with any single target damage class in the game right now. No joke. Edited February 10, 2012 by Jaramukhti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achromatis Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 2x? That's an exaggeration. I'm guessing you're speaking from a pvp perspective, but from a pve perspective, I feel a lot more useful as an Operative than I ever did as a rogue. The only thing unique I ever brought was the very, very rare lockpicking or trap disabling ability in certain situations. At least Operatives have a unique buff, a battle rez, an in-combat cc with no cooldown, and healing abilities. I would have loved all those things as a rogue. Rogues did get a lot more over time. I remember when Sap had to be talented to be useful and only worked on humanoids, blind lasted a few seconds, we had no AOE at all, no Tricks of the Trade, a lot of mobs/bosses were immune to poison, and Mutilate only worked behind mobs. But even in those days I managed to be #1 in dps a lot. The thing that rogues have that Ops need is a gap closer. Sprint or shadowstep plz? And you had to WALK to the raid, uphill in the snow, both ways! A short sprint(Why do Sages and Sorcs have this?!?!) would be great, I think shadowstep/teleport/jump would have too much impact on PvP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuixupu Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Oh yeah, and I had to MAKE my own poison...and pick pockets for blinding powder....and buy flash powder or I couldn't vanish....and carry thieves tools...and...and... Anyway yeah, I feel like it was a bit of an oversight that we don't get some kind of sprint. Something that can't be used in stealth is fine. You know what would be funny, a grappling hook. Rather than pulling someone to us like bounty hunters do, we can pull ourselves to them. Probably would never happen, but I like the idea, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sogar Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 The thing is you can run from any fight probably better then any other class, so I guess you could label us the get away artists or something like that... lol Try an assassin then. They have way better tools for that (basically, force shroud and force speed instead of dodge). Personaly, the main grip I have with an operative DPS is that I feel like an assassin DPS is just better (especially the new madness one). First, I really doubt that operative can compete with them on the single target damage department and then they just have more utility (well they do lack AoEs though). At least concealment should have a bit more sustainibility than the deception assassin but they aren't sustainable spec to begin with. Really, I'm glad some of you have good experiences. Maybe I'm wrong but I fear the day a DPS meter will come out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chipdouglas Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 My Op is level 50 and I am in some pretty decent pve/pvp gear. In pvp I would say 9/10 times no matter how good or bad my team is I'm #1 in damage, kills, objectives, and hell even #1 in healing from time to time. The damage is good and I can drop anything that is not receiving guard + spammed heals. Last game I played last night I had 410k damage 75K in heals 10 medals. As for pve.. we are 10/10 in hard modes right now with a good all around team. I am the only one in my guild who pulls agro from our tank at least once every boss fight while using countermeasures every chance I can. I keep an eye out for it and use cloaking screen when it happens so no harm done. Overall from my experience the damage is still very solid and we are by no means underpowered. Keeping this in mind, we are pretty gear dependent so just stick with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeoLager Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) Operative dps is fine. It's on par with merc and sorc dps. Operative dps is largely dependent on a group armor debuffs. But because it requires melee ranged, it's out of whack compared to the merc/sorc. Edited February 8, 2012 by GeoLager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theonepanda Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 The operative dps "nerf" was directed purely at pvp...hidden strike is nowhere in your rotation except as a possible opener in pve and as a terrible "dps cooldown" if you vanish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecoffeecup Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) The operative dps "nerf" was directed purely at pvp...hidden strike is nowhere in your rotation except as a possible opener in pve and as a terrible "dps cooldown" if you vanish. Please stop spreading misinformation: 1. In PvE, it was a nerf. Not a "nerf", not a fix, not a buff. It was a nerf. Doesn't matter if overall damage was reduced by 0.00001% or 50%, a reduction in damage dealt (with no compensation in PvE) is a PvE nerf. I cannot understand people's need to present it as something else. Nerfs can be both justified and unjusitified, so when you call it a nerf you're not somehow admitting it was unjustified. But when you try to hide what it is, it is much too easy to interpret as dishonest and perhaps as an attempt to find justification where there is none. 2. While it seems to be the case that the nerf was aimed at PvP only, it is a fact that it has an impact on your entire rotation in PvE, because the armor penetration from Acid Blade was reduced significantly, and this will affect every ability (unless you play poorly and forget to use Acid Blade). PS: Point 1 is not directed solely at the poster above, but at the many people around here I've seen trying to claim it was something other than a nerf. Edited February 8, 2012 by thecoffeecup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rigoremortis Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 @ people QQ'ing about them being the most squishy......assassin says what up, lol (hint, we're a LOT more squisher than ops, lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auxili Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 @ people QQ'ing about them being the most squishy......assassin says what up, lol (hint, we're a LOT more squisher than ops, lol) no you arent, you've got great defensive cooldowns which operatives do not have Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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