Hate grav/tracer spam? You are the 99%

[Tatermitts]

First, I'll start by saying that some of the reporting here is opinion and some is based in fact. Keep that in mind while reading my post and thinking of a well constructed, conversation oriented response.

Feel free to repute any of the facts and clarify anything that I get wrong; people make mistakes and so do I.

 

 

First, the facts:

After reading all of the posts about tracer spamming and seeing the activity in PvP, I decided to create a Grav-round commando. His name is IRtrooper. The point of creating the character was to see if spamming was really all it was or if there was some dynamic game play aspect I was missing. Also, I wanted to gauge the effectiveness of spamming.

 

PVP: I didn't play a game of PvP until 20 (as to not sully my experience). Since, I have played around 25 rounds of pvp. This has lead to some interesting realizations.

 

Rotation: My rotation is Grav-round with a High impact shot thrown in when it's off cooldown. Sometimes, when I want to be energy cautious I use auto-shot to mitigate the energy expenditure from spamming grav-round.

 

Energy Consumption: Rarely is running out of energy an issue. At first I had slight energy issues, and those were normally cured by using the reload ability. After, I added a couple auto-fires into my 2 move rotation and energy is much less of an issue.

 

Mobility: Grav-round is a 1.5 second cast, therefore any time I need to be mobile I just finish my one shot and move out.

 

Damage: The first grav-round against a target hits for between 1000-1200, crits for 1800-2000, and of course the damage increases as the armor debuff is applied.

 

Survivability: Wearing heavy armor and having the 25% damage mitigation ability are helpful in staying alive long enough to spam my way to victory. I'd say something else that helps with surviving is the fact that the animation for Grav-round is barely noticeable. This, I think, brings the spamming commando to a higher level than the spamming BH because it is easy to tell what the BH is doing (taking a painful dump and exploding missiles everywhere).

 

Badges and PVP results: I typically earn between 4 and 6 badges a fight. On the damage and kills side I am top 3 every time, win or lose, and more often than not I'm in 1st place on both.

 

Conclusions: It is a matter of opinion to say that the class is OP or broken, but it is an opinion that feels justified after my somewhat limited experience with the class. Playing requires no skill what-so-ever and yields a result that most dedicated DPS classes would kill for. I have a much higher level Gunslinger and the amount of abilities I have to use are astronomical in comparison, and I would have to be pumping pretty hard to reach the damage of the Trooper.

 

If I could change this class to lower the power level I think there are several options.

 

1. Take the armor reduction away from the grav/ tracer.

2. Increase the cast time to 2 seconds.

3. Slightly lower the damage of grav/tracer, increase high-impact damage and 31 point talent damage.

4. A cooldown on grav/tracer.

5. Increase in energy cost.

[Tatermitts]

I have screenshots of almost all of my pvp results pages. If anyone wants me to post them I can do that when I get home.

[Organikal]

First, I'll start by saying that some of the reporting here is opinion and some is based in fact. Keep that in mind while reading my post and thinking of a well constructed, conversation oriented response.

Feel free to repute any of the facts and clarify anything that I get wrong; people make mistakes and so do I.

 

 

First, the facts:

After reading all of the posts about tracer spamming and seeing the activity in PvP, I decided to create a Grav-round commando. His name is IRtrooper. The point of creating the character was to see if spamming was really all it was or if there was some dynamic game play aspect I was missing. Also, I wanted to gauge the effectiveness of spamming.

 

PVP: I didn't play a game of PvP until 20 (as to not sully my experience). Since, I have played around 25 rounds of pvp. This has lead to some interesting realizations.

 

Rotation: My rotation is Grav-round with a High impact shot thrown in when it's off cooldown. Sometimes, when I want to be energy cautious I use auto-shot to mitigate the energy expenditure from spamming grav-round.

 

Energy Consumption: Rarely is running out of energy an issue. At first I had slight energy issues, and those were normally cured by using the reload ability. After, I added a couple auto-fires into my 2 move rotation and energy is much less of an issue.

 

Mobility: Grav-round is a 1.5 second cast, therefore any time I need to be mobile I just finish my one shot and move out.

 

Damage: The first grav-round against a target hits for between 1000-1200, crits for 1800-2000, and of course the damage increases as the armor debuff is applied.

 

Survivability: Wearing heavy armor and having the 25% damage mitigation ability are helpful in staying alive long enough to spam my way to victory. I'd say something else that helps with surviving is the fact that the animation for Grav-round is barely noticeable. This, I think, brings the spamming commando to a higher level than the spamming BH because it is easy to tell what the BH is doing (taking a painful dump and exploding missiles everywhere).

 

Badges and PVP results: I typically earn between 4 and 6 badges a fight. On the damage and kills side I am top 3 every time, win or lose, and more often than not I'm in 1st place on both.

 

Conclusions: It is a matter of opinion to say that the class is OP or broken, but it is an opinion that feels justified after my somewhat limited experience with the class. Playing requires no skill what-so-ever and yields a result that most dedicated DPS classes would kill for. I have a much higher level Gunslinger and the amount of abilities I have to use are astronomical in comparison, and I would have to be pumping pretty hard to reach the damage of the Trooper.

 

If I could change this class to lower the power level I think there are several options.

 

1. Take the armor reduction away from the grav/ tracer.

2. Increase the cast time to 2 seconds.

3. Slightly lower the damage of grav/tracer, increase high-impact damage and 31 point talent damage.

4. A cooldown on grav/tracer.

5. Increase in energy cost.

 

The change in red was my old suggestion before I hit BM and got well geared. On similarly geared targets my HiB is critting for 3.2-3.5k and the demo can get anywhere up to 4k crit on 500+ expertise opponents. While decreasing the grav/tracer would make some people happy it wouldn't be global. I use grav/tracer as a set-up spell and not a kill spell (as it's not meant to spam). Having my instants hit for more would make me god mode even if you cut traver/grav in half.

 

There isn't anything truly wrong with the class. It's meant to be a glass cannon and if they aren't interrupted let them burn.

[pathiss]

Tracer/Grav spamming isnt the way to be most effective, just sayin. It does serve a valuable lesson though to teach noobs how to use interrupts.

[warultima]

Everyone knows Garv/Tracer is stupid and OP. People are just trying to divert the attention to the weaker and more complicated to play Sages/Sorcs as they are the most populated class even tho Commando is wayyyy more faceroll by light years.

 

Garv spam may not be the optimization but is proven to be effective all over the world especially for the newbies.

Edited March 5, 2012 by warultima

[Humanbeam]

First, I'll start by saying that some of the reporting here is opinion and some is based in fact. Keep that in mind while reading my post and thinking of a well constructed, conversation oriented response.

Feel free to repute any of the facts and clarify anything that I get wrong; people make mistakes and so do I.

 

 

First, the facts:

After reading all of the posts about tracer spamming and seeing the activity in PvP, I decided to create a Grav-round commando. His name is IRtrooper. The point of creating the character was to see if spamming was really all it was or if there was some dynamic game play aspect I was missing. Also, I wanted to gauge the effectiveness of spamming.

 

PVP: I didn't play a game of PvP until 20 (as to not sully my experience). Since, I have played around 25 rounds of pvp. This has lead to some interesting realizations.

 

Rotation: My rotation is Grav-round with a High impact shot thrown in when it's off cooldown. Sometimes, when I want to be energy cautious I use auto-shot to mitigate the energy expenditure from spamming grav-round.

 

Energy Consumption: Rarely is running out of energy an issue. At first I had slight energy issues, and those were normally cured by using the reload ability. After, I added a couple auto-fires into my 2 move rotation and energy is much less of an issue.

 

Mobility: Grav-round is a 1.5 second cast, therefore any time I need to be mobile I just finish my one shot and move out.

 

Damage: The first grav-round against a target hits for between 1000-1200, crits for 1800-2000, and of course the damage increases as the armor debuff is applied.

 

Survivability: Wearing heavy armor and having the 25% damage mitigation ability are helpful in staying alive long enough to spam my way to victory. I'd say something else that helps with surviving is the fact that the animation for Grav-round is barely noticeable. This, I think, brings the spamming commando to a higher level than the spamming BH because it is easy to tell what the BH is doing (taking a painful dump and exploding missiles everywhere).

 

Badges and PVP results: I typically earn between 4 and 6 badges a fight. On the damage and kills side I am top 3 every time, win or lose, and more often than not I'm in 1st place on both.

 

Conclusions: It is a matter of opinion to say that the class is OP or broken, but it is an opinion that feels justified after my somewhat limited experience with the class. Playing requires no skill what-so-ever and yields a result that most dedicated DPS classes would kill for. I have a much higher level Gunslinger and the amount of abilities I have to use are astronomical in comparison, and I would have to be pumping pretty hard to reach the damage of the Trooper.

 

If I could change this class to lower the power level I think there are several options.

 

1. Take the armor reduction away from the grav/ tracer.

2. Increase the cast time to 2 seconds.

3. Slightly lower the damage of grav/tracer, increase high-impact damage and 31 point talent damage.

4. A cooldown on grav/tracer.

5. Increase in energy cost.

 

Unfortunatelly Gunnery Commandoes and Arsenal Mercenaries aren't op at all on level 50 brackets. All classes have interrupts, knockbacks and stuns and they know how to use LoS.

Since you only got to 20ish, your data is pretty useless. YOu are missing 2 more skills on your rotation.

[BulldogzLife]

Mercs have nothing but tracer spam, and if a melee gets on top of them they are in serious trouble and more than likely dead.

 

Besides, if you really want to be taken seriously you need to come up with options that don't completely obliterate the class in PvE like what was done to Operatives. To implement some of the suggestions you have made would pretty much gimp the class in PvE to the level that dps Operatives were nerfed to, near worthless.

[Tatermitts]

The change in red was my old suggestion before I hit BM and got well geared. On similarly geared targets my HiB is critting for 3.2-3.5k and the demo can get anywhere up to 4k crit on 500+ expertise opponents. While decreasing the grav/tracer would make some people happy it wouldn't be global. I use grav/tracer as a set-up spell and not a kill spell (as it's not meant to spam). Having my instants hit for more would make me god mode even if you cut traver/grav in half.

 

There isn't anything truly wrong with the class. It's meant to be a glass cannon and if they aren't interrupted let them burn.

 

I guess that makes sense, but there is a 15 second cool down on High impact bolt and on demolition charge. This means that the ~7000 damage that you are doing can be done only 60 times in pvp (if you were able to use the ability immediately after starting and immediately after cool down, which isn't realistic). If you add in the times you die and have to wait, running to action, having to apply the first stack of grav-round, chances are that you would only use each of those abilities around half as often. For grav round you can use it 600 times in a warzone with no cooldown and no pre-requirements, even if it were half as often (per deaths and travel) you'd be talking about doing it 10 times as often as the demo and HiB. The 7000 damage you're doing is a cherry on top of a grav-round sundae.

[Kentontudor]

Play competitive lvl 50 PvP with an Arsenal Merc. Then get back to me.

 

It's not OP and it's not easy-mode.

 

Fact.

[Redmarx]

Merc/comm are fine. Tracer/grav is fine.

[Humanbeam]

Play competitive lvl 50 PvP with an Arsenal Merc. Then get back to me.

 

It's not OP and it's not easy-mode.

 

Fact.

 

Exactly. Without the huge amounts of utility that sorcerors have, it's rather hard instead.

[Abiza]

OP, I'm confident that even mercs/commandos are in the 99% as well. I don't know of any that enjoy having to use tracer/grav to the extent that's required.

[warultima]

Mercs have nothing but tracer spam, and if a melee gets on top of them they are in serious trouble and more than likely dead.

 

Besides, if you really want to be taken seriously you need to come up with options that don't completely obliterate the class in PvE like what was done to Operatives. To implement some of the suggestions you have made would pretty much gimp the class in PvE to the level that dps Operatives were nerfed to, near worthless.

 

Theres many ways to fix the most faceroll class in game Merc/Commandos.

One I can think of will be lowering tracer's damage and/or raising the casting cost and buff the other skills where when a proper rotation is preformed the overall dps is remain the same with other skills that combos after tracer cost lowered as well.

 

Currently any noob knows garv/tracer is completely faceroll to the max thats unmatched by any other classes. This change will emphasize the "rotation" aspect within Merc so they are more inline to other classes.

[savionen]

The simplicity is stupid, but it's not OP at 50.

 

Getting crit for 2.5k Tracer Missiles when you're in the 10-49 bracket is really lame.

Getting crit for 3k Tracer Missiles when you're 50 is pretty meh.

[Tatermitts]

Unfortunatelly Gunnery Commandoes and Arsenal Mercenaries aren't op at all on level 50 brackets. All classes have interrupts, knockbacks and stuns and they know how to use LoS.

Since you only got to 20ish, your data is pretty useless. YOu are missing 2 more skills on your rotation.

 

While I agree that my information doesn't account for higher level gameplay, people have stuns, interrupts and knockbacks at all levels of pvp. I have been interuppted and stunned as has everyone. When I target someone and they interrupt I just use the other abilities I have for 4 seconds and then go right back to grav spam.

 

I'm not sure what the second skill is, but demo charge is only going to make the class better, not worse.

 

I have seen level 50 brackets where this class is on top, and if not is following a Sage or Sorcerer which is what made me do this non-sense to start with.

[KruelhandJorb]

i rolled a trooper yesterday with the sole purpose of spamming grav round in warzones in an attempt to get top dmg.

 

I think I can do it.

[Slackfumasta]

Everyone knows Garv/Tracer is stupid and OP. People are just trying to divert the attention to the weaker and more complicated to play Sages/Sorcs as they are the most populated class even tho Commando is wayyyy more faceroll by light years.

 

Garv spam may not be the optimization but is proven to be effective all over the world especially for the newbies.

 

Haha...hahahaha...I play a gunnery commando and a balance sage. Sage is the absolute most ez-mode class to play in PVP. Not to say that commando isn't easy, but sage is the easiest one to play AND dominate the scoreboard (and opposing players) at the same time.

[Tatermitts]

Haha...hahahaha...I play a gunnery commando and a balance sage. Sage is the absolute most ez-mode class to play in PVP. Not to say that commando isn't easy, but sage is the easiest one to play AND dominate the scoreboard (and opposing players) at the same time.

 

Fact: they are both e-z mode.

[Links_Knight]

Everyone knows Garv/Tracer is stupid and OP. People are just trying to divert the attention to the weaker and more complicated to play Sages/Sorcs as they are the most populated class even tho Commando is wayyyy more faceroll by light years.

 

Garv spam may not be the optimization but is proven to be effective all over the world especially for the newbies.

 

How the hell do you manage to say "Garv" each time, once fair enough but you managed it both times >.>

[warultima]

Haha...hahahaha...I play a gunnery commando and a balance sage. Sage is the absolute most ez-mode class to play in PVP. Not to say that commando isn't easy, but sage is the easiest one to play AND dominate the scoreboard (and opposing players) at the same time.

 

Sounds really mad, umadbro?

[Organikal]

I guess that makes sense, but there is a 15 second cool down on High impact bolt and on demolition charge. This means that the ~7000 damage that you are doing can be done only 60 times in pvp (if you were able to use the ability immediately after starting and immediately after cool down, which isn't realistic). If you add in the times you die and have to wait, running to action, having to apply the first stack of grav-round, chances are that you would only use each of those abilities around half as often. For grav round you can use it 600 times in a warzone with no cooldown and no pre-requirements, even if it were half as often (per deaths and travel) you'd be talking about doing it 10 times as often as the demo and HiB. The 7000 damage you're doing is a cherry on top of a grav-round sundae.

 

Yes you're right, but added with a grav/demo that hit at the same time and then HiB right after thats like 10k if they crit in a 3 second window... if I have exp buff + adrenal (which I ofter do) you're looking at even bigger numbers. But... again this is fine considering if I even have 1 melee on me I'm pretty useless if the melee has any skill at all.

[eTpC]

TLDR

 

however your dmg output is wrong, my gunnery commando hits for 1,5-2k and crits for 3-3,8 (48% crit chance there)

goes up with relics and adrenals, biggest hit was recently someting sligtly over 6k with demo round 5k is common when it crits

 

thats why ppl crying its op

ofc, unless you gear it, your gonna be pathetic dps and be writing posts like this

[MartyrLXXVII]

OP, I'm confident that even mercs/commandos are in the 99% as well. I don't know of any that enjoy having to use tracer/grav to the extent that's required.

 

This.

 

Grouped with a TM merc a while back and he didn't like it. Specifically said he didn't want to be a tracer spammer.

 

As for the OP' so called facts... 25 matches and started at lvl 20? You obviously don't even understand the concept of a full build. More so, that low a level then you'd be a sitting duck against anyone with half amount of skill, and don't claim that there are plenty of skilled ppl in pvp because there isn't. I have a terrible frame rate, don't even have all my abilities hot keyed yet (lazy), and am still fumbling with my rotation at times, yet I can still rank top overall. Goes to show how hard that is.

 

Against anyone that has half a clue a spammer will be toast without support.

Edited March 5, 2012 by MartyrLXXVII

[Kunari]

Play competitive lvl 50 PvP with an Arsenal Merc. Then get back to me.

 

It's not OP and it's not easy-mode.

 

Fact.

 

^^ QFT. OP only got to level 20-ish, then ran around a few dozen WZ's. He was missing many of skills and abilities a Commando will train into at higher levels. He's also not going against classes that are fully trained/skilled either, so he noticed fewer knock-backs, interrupts, stuns, etc that other classes bring to counter Commando's. He also didn't seem to run into any teams that knew what they were doing if they just let him cast without challenge.

 

My friend is leveling a Trooper now (in the 30's) and we often two-man-group into WZs, I know, at least on our server, that our opponents pay attention and rarely let him go unchallenged.

 

So from my experience either the OP is making up a story to sound like an objective review or just ran into the perfect storm of teams that didn't know how to counter a Trooper.

[LatinLegacy]

Changes won't happen. Want to know why?

 

1) We don't have any interrupts.

2) We don't have any speed increasing abilities.

3) We don't have any leaping abilities.

4) We don't have a push/pull ability.

5) We have to STAND STILL for 80% of our abilities. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've been stunned, knocked down, pulled etc because I can not be mobile & unload heavy damage.

6) We don't have a shield of high damage decreasing ability. We have a shield that reduces 25% of incoming damage for 12 seconds but trust me, it doesn't do much & has a very long cooldown.

 

So if you take away our MAIN damage setup ability, we will be even worse in PvP than we already are. Trust me, being a near BM gunnery commando, we are laughably easy to take down. Our high armor is just a stat of a few hundred extra points as it does near nothing to reduce much of the damage we received compared to lower armor tiers. Unlike a tanking class where the difference is noticeable. Sith Sorcerers & Jedi Sages are in much more need of nerfing across the board before even thinking about making changes to Grav Round or Tracer Missile. If they do makes changes, I & many other Gunnery Commandos & Mercnary Arsenals will expect, if not, demand boost in all of our other abilities to make up for the lose.

 

-LatinLegacy

Edited March 5, 2012 by LatinLegacy