what improvements do you think the smuggler should have

[annaserradell]

guys i would just like to hear wot the community feels it needs

[Tenzoo]

Give me back burst damage.

 

I prefer to have a quick burst than long sustain. I'm okay with having nearly zero survivability but just give me something in trade. I want my burst back. Burst is what a "rogue" should have and we dont have that right now.

 

We have zero burst.

We have zero sustain.

We have zero survivability.

 

Give us one of the three and we would be fine... but I think almost all scoundrels/ops picked this class to be the glass cannon and right now we're not.

[Metalmac]

I could go on all day with the problems we have:

 

1. Heroic Elites see us in Stealth from 80 meters even through walls and generators, but the rest of the party is less then 40 meters away unstealthed but does not get attacked.

THIS IS JUST SO STUPID!!!!!! How is this even possible???????

 

Solution: Fix Stealth so it works properly this situation is insane.

 

2. In PVP way to many class can break our stealth and lock us out of stealth.

 

Solution: Give us a cleanse of DoTs that works on Force also. Any Force user has a unfair advantage to lock us out of stealth.

 

3. Scapper cover is WORTHLESS!!! Can not stealth as we get locked out and cover sucks!!

 

Solution: ACTUALLY WORK ON FIXING COVER TO WORK!!!

 

4. We have no charge so if we get locked out of stealth we do not have very much damage.

 

Solution: Give us back our Armor Penetration as we need it for PVP and PVE.

[PhilSine]

Scoundrels need a gap closer and gunslingers need a knockback. Nearly every other class has these as a means of either getting in range for an attack or preventing damage from melee.

 

As a scoundrel as soon as the target is more than 4m away most of my attacks are useless. When they get more than 10m away my attacks are limited to 3 of any use and none of them can help me regain attack range. In many cases I've burned my disappearing act and been quickly flushed out of it so I can't turn and run so at that point I'm dead.

 

If disappearing act broke DoT's as well as combat and actually worked in the way described (making me virtually undetectable for 10 seconds) instead of making me momentarily undetectable for less than one second that would be a great help.

 

I've had fights that were 1 v 1 where I popped disappearing act with no DoT's on me and the opponent either never lost their targetting on me or they regained it very fast and proceeded to shoot at me and draw me back out of stealth. In some cases when I hit disappearing act it's an escape manuever so I then voluntarily put myself out of my attack range and once I'm forced to reappear I can neither continue to run (no burst speed) nor effectively attack (no mid-range combat attacks) so my last option is to die.

 

I'm not certain as to why our armor is called medium when it seems paper thin. My Jedi Sentinel also wears medium armor but due to other abilities dodges way more attacks naturally and has much greater survivability.

 

Also...when I was in the healer tree for a bit...it never seemed as though triggering dodge actually granted me faster movement when I had the skills spec'd for the +20% movement. I even tested this out by footracing ppl and I wasn't any faster.

[Aetou]

I'm actually working on a pretty comprehensive and extensively argued list of changes that Scoundrels need but the highlights of it are:

 

(1) Survivability. We need more as Melee DPS that lack crazy burst. My fix? Defensive Screen should be improved to absorb the same amount of damage as Static Barrier does. The fact we can only use it on ourselves and can use it less often than Sorcerers means that the change would hardly be excessive. I'd probably also increase the maximum duration to 30s like Static Barrier, although the maximum duration rarely matters.

 

(2) Upper Hand. Seriously, this should be an asset but instead it is a liability. Wounding Shot and Kolto Pack should not consume Upper Hand. Sucker Punch I'm less sure of as that change would take a lot more reworking and Scrappers are still currently our strongest tree.

 

(3) Energy Management. We have the harshest resource management in the game and this is what limits our sustained damage/healing more than anything. A number of abilities need to have their energy costs reduced (or they should increase our total energy.) Kolto Pack is the most obviously candidate to be reduced to 15, along with Quick Shot. Blaster Whip should be 10. Small tweaks but they'd make a big difference.

 

(4) Utility/CC. At the very least Tranquilizer should be able to be used in Combat. It has a short range and is currently so inferior to a Sage's CC that it may as well not exist except in solo play. Frankly, you could probably also remove the Stealth requirement.

 

(5) Speed. We need an in-combat Sprint ability. I'm not asking for a gap closer on a par with Force Sprint or Force Leap but we do need something to make us able to move into melee range more quickly in both PVP (Huttball, especially) and PVE (for boss fights where you need to rapidly move into and out of melee.) I'm thinking the standard 35% 'Sprint' speed increase lasting for 15s on a 60s cooldown.

 

(6) Healing. A number of our abilities are very weak compared to their Sage equivalents. Kolto Cloud needs to lose the 4 person limit to put it on a par with Salvation. SRMP needs its numbers increasing to put it on a par with Rejuvenate in terms of usefulness (so higher base numbers to balance the lack of special effects.) In fact, you could probably just make it so that instead of fiddling around with placing double stacks on people and then maintaining them the base ability just works like a double stack currently does. Diagnostic Scan needs to heal for significantly more than it currently does.

 

 

Think that's it. We just need small tweaks in a number of different areas, plus a couple of more major ones, and then the AC would work well. 1, 3 and 5 could of course be given to Gunslingers too without breaking them.

[montreau]

survivabilty, escape, bug fixes, some dots protection mechanics in DF build (energy return, instant damage or temporary damage increase if dots are dispelled/removed)

[dcgregorya]

Dirty fighting - needs major energy management fixes. Hemo should have a move debuff like shock charge does in the sabo tree for GS. Remove upper hand requirement from wounding shot.

 

Speed shot and sabo charge should not require cover - of course out of cover speed shot could be interrupted - IMHO working as intended.

 

Scrapper fixes - give dodge a damage redux quality and increase duration - this gives them more staying power.

 

Sawbones - I'm sorry but this tree *needs* a bubble. There's some end game mechanics that just plain require being able to bubble (HK47 in TFE for instance). If you want, make it unable to be combined with slow release medpack.

[Bizwolf]

We have a gap closer. Speced it will stop them for 2 seconds. That's a gap closer. Good, not really but it is one.

 

It's still a good class but there's something wrong when HS averages less than 2k and BS hits almost 4k. BS is the hardest hitting ability now which is weird but whatever.

 

The best thing we could get and it's the very best thing is shadow step on a 20 meter with a 1 minute CD. I would actually log in.

[Tarrent]

I have a gunslinger-build smuggler. I've stopped logging in to do dailies etc, and I don't feel like I can raid with the state the game is in now. I'm still paying my sub, for now, hoping this thing will come together better (LUA addons, combat logs, and my class feeling like it works right would help).

 

My main in WoW is a Marksmanship build Hunter, and I set up my Smuggler as Gunslinger with the sense that it would resemble my hunter in terms of effectiveness. Marks hunter is the single target DPS ranged class specialist and I think that's what Gunslinger was also supposed to be.

 

I don't PVP. The things that mess up my enjoyment of soloing PVE on this character are:

 

- No mend pet. So no matter how well I gear Bowdaar, I have no means of working with extra damage which may be going out. On my hunter I can effectively trade globals (IE: dps loss) for extra healing on the pet, and also roll a glyph which buffs all healing done to my pet. Having no mend pet is kinda miserable and frustrating.

 

 

- I feel like I cannot kite effectively. My smuggler feels like he's missing so much compared to my marks hunter.

 

Without needing to spend talents, my hunter's got Ice Trap (+ Trap Launcher), and Concussive Shot, and Disengage. And if I want, I can use a pet which has a single-target slow. Not bothering to count the pet's slow (which I didn't feel a need for very often), just those 3 straightforward abilities, and I can get so much done with them. My smuggler doesn't come together like that, even if I were to blow the talents that seem related to it. My hunter's Concussive Shot rolls a 6 second duration with a 5 second cooldown and the effect isn't broken by damage. Several of my hunter's usual DPS shots automatically induce a similar effect (Chimera Shot and my Multishot can both cause it).

 

My smuggler's Leg Shot isn't like Concussive Shot - it's got a long cooldown (unless I spend talents) and in any case, damage breaks the effect. My main push-away ability, a talented Aimed Shot, requires me to enter cover and is a long, slow, channeled cast - - terrible if kiting. Another emergency push-away (long cooldown), Pulse Detonator, also requires cover. My Thermal Grenade ability has had talents used (wasted? Hunter has no talents spent on this) for the shorter cooldown, but even then, the knockdown is only for 'weak' or 'standard' targets. I usually dont need to kite those.

 

Dirty Kick's on a long-ish cooldown and it requires melee range. If while kiting, you're ever in melee range of your target, it's just not right. I hope that was not meant to be used as a kiting tool.

 

And don't forget that my smuggler's best shots require cover. Enter cover, exit cover, enter cover, and on and on? god help me, it sucks. My hunter's Chimera Shot works on the move.

 

 

- My smuggler's surviveability is just bad. No Feign Death, no Mend Pet, no Freezing Trap. No Misdirect doesn't help - oh and don't forget, no Camouflage. The fact that I have a freezing-trap equivalent for droids only, but which causes the droid to heal up all of it's damage taken until that time, is.... screwy. I can use it for either a complete retreat, or, a CC meant to hold one droid while I kill another one first. It's not at all what Freezing Trap at the end of Trap Launcher is.

 

I go out to do dailies and end up dying when I don't have the tools to work with a single pat which walks up - - my hunter's like in a different world when it comes to that. What my Smuggler does have is the Hunter equivalent of 2 Deterrences (can't really count Scrambling Field as a third) - those damage mitigations seem to serve as a delay of the inevitable (my death) instead of buying me time to get the situation under control like my hunter's Deterrence does. I feel like when things go bad, my Smuggler's in a straight up DPS race with the attacking mob, and it's not like that with my hunter where I can use my abilities and skill to creatively control the situation.

 

Being non-allowed to switch pets (or even summon a pet) if already in combat is horrible btw.

 

 

As far as a raid-ish environment goes - I already made a post about that somewhere else - but this smuggler's lack of mobility (IE: no disengage) and the awkwardness of the cover mechanic are kinda... messed up.

 

I have something else to say that might sound goofy.

 

I can't go back to WoW because of how badly they've messed it up. The support structure for 25man raiding has been slaughtered; Mists of Kung Foo Panda is creatively void, and makes me want to barf, and is impossible for me to live with; the punky-ness of the WoW playerbase makes me want to never PUG again. The WoW players around me who are happy to buy those horrible 'blizzard store' mounts and pets for RL cash are a source of confusion and disappointment.

 

But see, now, the more familiar I get with my SWTOR smuggler, the more I miss what I now realize was the great design which came together as my Marksmanship Hunter

Edited February 17, 2012 by Tarrent

[Miorum]

We have a gap closer. Speced it will stop them for 2 seconds. That's a gap closer. Good, not really but it is one.

"Gap Closer" meaning there should be an actual large gap to fill with a skill, not a "shot him in the back at 4m, that'll teach 'm to run away." move.

 

Scouldrels are the only Advance Class who lack any 'gap closer' -- I do not enjoy casually strolling over to my target, stealthed or not, while from behind me the blasters click, force objects get flung and Jedi masterfully jump past me at an alarming speed.

 

What, am I supposed to ask Corso nicely to harpoon that meaniepants over to me so I don't have to use my tired and achy feet?

 

In answer to the actual thread, I believe:

- Scoundrels need a gap-closer

- Gunslingers need a knock-back

- Energy needs to be redone for both AC's

- Upper Hand needs some serious redoing. Why on earth do I lose the whole stack if the timer ends, instead of it counting down only one?

[Kheldras]

-Gap closer

 

-a kind of sustained damage shot

[Sabredance]

As a Sharpshooter Gunslinger i wish Charged Burst would be usable out of Cover and build up on the move.

 

I´d love Rapid Fire/Deadeye to work on Aimed Shot instead of Speed Shot but thats just personal preferance.

 

I´d like cover to protect against more abilities.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Sabredance

[Darckense]

1. Visible shotgun when slung.

 

2. Some sort of insta-oh-sh*t heal

[Tetrablade]

I keep saying scoundrel should be moved to a more ranged class but not sure anyone is agreeing with me. So basically:

 

1) Better sustained dps

2) Better healing with some instant heals

3) gap closers

4) Rework of the upper hand system

 

Leveling a commando for better healing and dps. Just wish I could get over how ugly the ship is. >.<

[Xippin]

50 Scoundral Valor 61 and currently done all hard mode ops. Here is my take on it as having dps'd and healed.

 

Sawbones

(Biggest issue is energy management imo, so that's my focus)

1. Kolto Cloud needs reworked. For 30 Energy it should heal for more then 900 tic crits on 4 people. Boost the Healing amount, or allow it to heal more then 4 people. Or, reduce the energy cost to 20.

 

2. Slow Release Med Pack need to have the energy cost reduced. I've done the math in another thread where they were comparing healers, and you cannot SRM an 8 man operation with 2 stacks period. Reduce the energy cost to 10.

 

3. Kolto Pack, this is currently useless. Change this to the same amount of healing, but as a short duration instant cast HoT (3 seconds; 1 tick per second) that still consumes Upper Hand but only costs 10 Energy.

 

4. Allow Alacrity to affect the Tic spacing of SRM/Kolto Cloud. This will make the heals come faster and allowing (at a certain point) an additional tick, which would increase the overall healing output of our HoT.

 

5. Move Fight or flight to replace scramble and boost scramble to a 100% speed increase (half what the assassins is, but gives you 50% longer duration and the cooldown is twice as long as assassins) This will allow Sawbones HoT's to continue to heal themself and their team after they use their survival/escape tool.

 

Scrapper

 

1. Sustained Damage, trade black market mods with mortal wounds in the dirty fighting tree and double the damage from flying fists or make it 100% chance to proc. This would put scrappers sustained dps on par with everyone else in my opinion.

 

2. Stopping power, change it to reduces the cooldown of tendon blast by 6 seconds per point (total of 12 seconds) and increase it's range by 2.5 meters per point (total of 5 meters). Would make it easier to hold on to targets in pvp.

 

3. Gap closer, read Sawbones #5

I feel energy is NOT an issue for scrapper scoundrals as I've never struggled with it in pvp/pve. In fact, I purposefully attempt to blow as much energy during consumables as possible in pve because I can use cool head every 2 mins and be right back to a rotation that doesn't drop me below 60.

 

Dirty Fighting

(I feel in it's current state, it does not mesh well with scoundral so not sure how my proposed changes would affect gunslinger)

 

1. Rough and Tumble needs to work like Round Two out of the scrapper tree. Energy is NOT an issue at ALL for Dirty Fighting, the issue is Upper Hand. Change Rough and Tumble to have a 75% chance on wounding shots critically hitting to re-grant Upper Hand.

 

2. Mortal Wounds is broken; does not currently work. Fix

 

3. Change Street Tough to allow alacrity to affect DoT tics.

 

With those changes, I feel all three trees would be on par with all other advanced classes in the game without giving us a significant advantage.

[Metalmac]

My number one issue for Scrapper is Stealth is just broken.

 

Standing 80 Meters away from a boss to use Shoot First while rest of party is 40 meters away is just stupid.

 

So Scrapper can not use the Signature move Shoot First in most fights and this is just unfair.

[Ugugg]

Now that I've played some L50 pvp, i'm beginning to think a gap-closer isn't needed so much. (Scoundrel)

 

Maybe its just me finally getting used to my class. I did about 5 WZ's in a row with only 1 death. Mostly civil war and void star.

 

What I would love to see is a knock back of some kind. Even if its only 5 meters. I just want something to contribute in huttball. Kicking ppl of ledges would work fine for me.

 

I'm also starting to like the talented dodge of +movement speed when dodge is active along with the 2-piece set. Popping that and defence shiled usually is enough to get me out of what ever situation i am in.

[silvershadez]

I think theres one thing that could improve the Scoundrel / Operative AND the Gunslinger / Sniper:

 

Make Sabotage Charge usable out of cover. People may think this would be too overpowered, but i think thats maybe one thing that could fix lot's of issues for both AC's.

The Gunslinger / Sniper generally lacks mobility, while the Scoundrel / Operative lacks some viable ranged attack, beneath a gap closer or somekind of an utility skill. Also this wouldn't make any of them hardly overpowered.

[Aetou]

Dirty Fighting

(I feel in it's current state, it does not mesh well with scoundral so not sure how my proposed changes would affect gunslinger)

 

1. Rough and Tumble needs to work like Round Two out of the scrapper tree. Energy is NOT an issue at ALL for Dirty Fighting, the issue is Upper Hand. Change Rough and Tumble to have a 75% chance on wounding shots critically hitting to re-grant Upper Hand.

 

2. Mortal Wounds is broken; does not currently work. Fix

 

3. Change Street Tough to allow alacrity to affect DoT tics.

 

With those changes, I feel all three trees would be on par with all other advanced classes in the game without giving us a significant advantage.

 

Energy isn't an issue for Dirty Fighters? Seriously? We have more energy issues than Scrappers and energy is the really limiting factor to our PVE sustained damage. Even with the energy management talents from Sawbones I still constantly have energy issues as a Dirty Fighter. Alacrity is useless for a Dirty Fighter, so why would we want to change things so that we have to stack it instead of Power/Crit/Surge?

 

While your suggestions for the first two trees aren't too bad the changes you're suggesting to Dirty Fighting would make it worse instead of better.

[TheNewDemoman]

I only play a gunslinger but there are definitely some changes that could be made.

 

Energy management is a big problem, on world bosses I have already used all my energy AND cool head in the first minute. This results in me doing 90-100 dmg until Cool Head is back.

 

Also make us less stagnant. During a boss fight or PvP I am incapable of doing DPS on the run because a good 80% of my skills require cover, and the tank occasionaly drops aggro and BAM dead. Small things

[silvershadows]

The only problem I have with my gunslinger, which is really a big problem, is lack of survivability in pvp.

 

Because I have two guns I am immediately everyone's target. I am no stranger to the kiting game (I played a theurgist and a shaman in dark age of camelot i mean come on) so I know to move before anyone even gets to me. However, our little damage absorb buff - I am lucky if it absorbs even half of a hit most of the time, it seems.

 

Yes, we have a knockback and we have dirty kick (I'm dirty fighting so I get the speed boost after I use dirty kick) but this doesn't stop people from getting right back into your face.

 

I can use hunker down but still get force pushed out of cover - the tooltip says you're immune to controlling effects but you can still get force pushed - this should be changed since your body being flung around uncontrollably should be considered a controlling effect, and once I've gone through both my grenades, hemo blast, vital shot, and wounding shot, I have to be in cover if I want to do any damage at all.

 

While I feel far more maneuverable than a sharpshooter, only really needing to duck into cover for speed shot/charged burst, smart players know that if they look at me I'll go squish, so I can't go 2 minutes without having an entire team chasing me down. Without a dedicated healer, warzones are hell.

 

Open world pvp is a little different, if I get the drop on someone they're usually dead before they can get to me... and if they do I just have Corso harpoon them away. Unfortunately this is not an option for warzones.

 

My suggestion, therefore, would be to give gunslinger's a talent or spell buff that reduces damage taken by a certain amount, either triggered off a proc or an active ability.

 

I mean bounty hunters and troopers, who are in HEAVY ARMOR get a 10 percent damage reduction buff when they cast tracer missile/grav round. So why do smugglers, who are already everyone's favorite target AND are in medium armor get nothing?

[silvershadows]

I only play a gunslinger but there are definitely some changes that could be made.

 

Energy management is a big problem, on world bosses I have already used all my energy AND cool head in the first minute. This results in me doing 90-100 dmg until Cool Head is back.

 

Also make us less stagnant. During a boss fight or PvP I am incapable of doing DPS on the run because a good 80% of my skills require cover, and the tank occasionaly drops aggro and BAM dead. Small things

 

Use your free attack once or twice in between each ability or every other one and this won't happen

[dcgregorya]

Use your free attack once or twice in between each ability or every other one and this won't happen

 

Yeah its more of an issue when dealing with multiple elites. For dealing with single target you can usually find *something* that works but vital shot has some serious issues when you need to cast it across multiple enemies sequentially without rest time.

[tolshortte]

Id like to see Dodge, you know, actually dodge attacks for its duration.

Id like to see Defense Screen, you know, actually absorb incoming damage.

 

i hate dying when both are active. its like ***. and i dont mean from DoTs or AoE. and even then Defense Screen has failed me.

 

Id like to see our Knockback removed from cover. i can deal with the rest of the cover mechanic, but i hate having to kneel down to use a knockback.

 

Id like to see my OH actually be useful. Its damage feels incredibly gimped to me since i had to give up stealth and heals to get it.

 

Id like to see Aimed Shot actually ignore armor when specced for it. Ive tested this with friends, I can use AS with and without the talent on the same target and get the same damage, thats messed up.

 

Flourish Shot seems to have little effect. While there is a slight difference in damage while present, it hardly represents 20% armor reduction.

 

So in short, id like to see added OH damage, knockback removed from cover and FIX THE CLASS so it works as intended

[Metalmac]

Well after switching back to Scoundrel heals I would suggest that something needs to be done about Sawbones survival in PVP.

 

Sawbones has so little they can do when being attacked it is just sad.

 

Also I suggest that Vital Shot is a POISON BULLET and can not be purged or cleansed.

 

This would be fair as Scoundrel and Gunslingers can not purge or cleanse Force user DoTs.