New abilities incoming in 1.2

[zantezutske]

Class changes in 1.2 include new abilities for the Warrior and the Knight, a nerf for the Bounty Hunter, and more. Every class will receive changes, and all skill tree points refunded so you can look over the trees again before deciding how to rebuild your class. "Some players will be excited, some might not. That's always the case when there's tweaks to classes."

 

Head over to ign and read it all a good read indeed:)

 

http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1219843p1.html

[hadoken]

Refunding an entire skill tree sounds like more than a 'tweak' to me. Hopefully it doesn't change the game too much. I rather like it as it is.

[gsorreta]

I hope our new ability or abilities is/are something useful!

[Inzuher]

I would love to have at least one force lightning abillity. It makes no sence to play a powerful sith without force lightning, the only reason Vader couldn't use force lightning was because of his artificel arms.

 

Ofc we shouldn't be focusing very much on lightning like the inquesitor, but it could be something like Lord Scourge's smash ability. When he knocks the npc in the head there are some force lightning added to it, we could have that too. Or maybe chance the execute mode from another lightsaber throw to a force lightning attack?

Edited March 5, 2012 by Inzuher

[Schwarzwald]

Class changes in 1.2 include new abilities for the Warrior and the Knight, a nerf for the Bounty Hunter, and more. Every class will receive changes, and all skill tree points refunded so you can look over the trees again before deciding how to rebuild your class. "Some players will be excited, some might not. That's always the case when there's tweaks to classes."

 

Head over to ign and read it all a good read indeed:)

 

http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1219843p1.html

 

 

Here are my hopes for the Warrior changes, in terms of juggernaut play.

 

 

Immortal - Not much work to be done here, maybe a few Skills could be changed or perhaps the nature of Defense can be changed, but otherwise the playstyle that is promoted within this tree in its current form is really fun. I hope they make changes that improve Immortal surivability while still keeping their stuns and utility in place.

 

Vengeance - This tree is an absolute mess. Points are too expensive and all your bread and butter Skills are on a 9 second cooldown, which means you have to resort to rotating lack luster attacks. The dots don't really help much for PvP and the survivability talents are way out of place. There is no flow to it at all. IMO the survivability in Vengeance should come from doing damage, not from doing defensive things, if that makes any sense. Also they need to change the way pooled hatred works, it currently isn't that great and doesn't add much to your overall burst in PvP.

 

Rage - This tree is also an absolute mess which borders in the areas of being over powered. IMO a good way to treat Rage would be to make it the Force Ability tree. One thing they could do is nerf the damage on smash but buff the damage on force scream. What do I mean by this? I think the tree could be better balanced if Force Scream was hitting in the 3.5-5.5k range while smash got its damage lowered. I'm just of the opinion that it is WAY to easy to do the amount of damage you do in Rage in its current form. The way the buffs work is also kinda wonky, its a good idea, but I think it could use some smoothing out.

 

 

tl;dr Immo needs minor survivability tweaking, Veng needs more upfront burst and less dots and herp-derp survivability and Rage needs its flow to be swapped around for higher single target burst and lessened aoe burst.

 

 

also, new abilities for warriors? Thanks bioware, just what I needed, more buttons.

[DiLune]

They sort of talk about that with the Legacy system. Their example was getting a SI to level 50 and making a Bounty Hunter where you select the ability to be able to use Force Lightning (but it would be limited by your Heroic Moment ability.)

[sippelmc]

For immortal, all I hope for is

 

- smoother dps rotation that keeps up rage

- a pull (maybe even just put a talent in above the no channeling choke adding range/pull to it)

- a bit better baseline survivability

- aoe threat (add to somethnig like smash or something)

Edited March 5, 2012 by sippelmc

[Vid-szhite]

Here are my hopes for the Warrior changes, in terms of juggernaut play.

 

 

Immortal - Not much work to be done here, maybe a few Skills could be changed or perhaps the nature of Defense can be changed, but otherwise the playstyle that is promoted within this tree in its current form is really fun. I hope they make changes that improve Immortal surivability while still keeping their stuns and utility in place.

 

Vengeance - This tree is an absolute mess. Points are too expensive and all your bread and butter Skills are on a 9 second cooldown, which means you have to resort to rotating lack luster attacks. The dots don't really help much for PvP and the survivability talents are way out of place. There is no flow to it at all. IMO the survivability in Vengeance should come from doing damage, not from doing defensive things, if that makes any sense. Also they need to change the way pooled hatred works, it currently isn't that great and doesn't add much to your overall burst in PvP.

 

Rage - This tree is also an absolute mess which borders in the areas of being over powered. IMO a good way to treat Rage would be to make it the Force Ability tree. One thing they could do is nerf the damage on smash but buff the damage on force scream. What do I mean by this? I think the tree could be better balanced if Force Scream was hitting in the 3.5-5.5k range while smash got its damage lowered. I'm just of the opinion that it is WAY to easy to do the amount of damage you do in Rage in its current form. The way the buffs work is also kinda wonky, its a good idea, but I think it could use some smoothing out.

 

 

tl;dr Immo needs minor survivability tweaking, Veng needs more upfront burst and less dots and herp-derp survivability and Rage needs its flow to be swapped around for higher single target burst and lessened aoe burst.

 

 

also, new abilities for warriors? Thanks bioware, just what I needed, more buttons.

 

I actually disagree completely on your Vengeance and Rage analyses. Since everything in Vengeance is really powerful, has a 9-second cooldown on everything, and its own strongest abilities make other strong abilities either auto-crit or cost nothing, everything flows into each other so well that you actually have a rotation, so rather than pumping out upfront burst, it slams things again and again with endless chains of powerful attacks. The survivability boosts are a godsend in PvP - Unstoppable in particular makes me smile every time, since it makes Casters all waste their knockbacks and CCs on you, and in Huttball it makes you the prime ball carrier. It also makes you an outstanding off-tank.

 

I too used to think Vengeance didn't flow well, but now that I've figured out the rotation, I almost don't want to go back to Immortal. It's so fun and so powerful that I beat Rage Juggs in PvP all the time, and I DPS so fast that even Mercs can't keep up. It might have very poor burst, but its sustained DPS is fantastic.

 

Rage, on the other hand, has very poor sustained, but extremely high burst. It borders on underpowered in PvE, and is really only comparable to Vengeance in PvP because of crit smash. Force Scream having extra damage (virtual auto crit + 20% dot) is Vengeance territory, so making Rage do more damage with it would kind of step on Vengeance's toes.

 

I'm no Rage expert, but I think it's perfectly fine as a whole, its huge burst balanced out by the back-loaded nature of said burst, and its poor sustained DPS otherwise. Vengeance is my set, and all I think it needs is to have Rampage buff Ravage when it procs, similar to the way Riddle does with Unload.

 

 

 

Immortal's playstyle is incredibly fun, and I agree this doesn't need to be changed. However, it does need survivability and threat boosts to put it on par with other tanks, and so people won't have reason to consider Vengeance Hybrid a tank.

[Schwarzwald]

They sort of talk about that with the Legacy system. Their example was getting a SI to level 50 and making a Bounty Hunter where you select the ability to be able to use Force Lightning (but it would be limited by your Heroic Moment ability.)

 

This is only useful for questing. You need your companion out to activate it and such, so its going to be limited to only leveling it seems.

[Vid-szhite]

For immortal, all I hope for is

 

- smoother dps rotation that keeps up rage

- a pull (maybe even just put a talent in above the no channeling choke adding range/pull to it)

- a bit better baseline survivability

- aoe threat (add to somethnig like smash or something)

 

What I would like to see Warriors get is to have our Force Charge refresh automatically when we defeat something. Wouldn't be OP in PvP, because you have to actually kill someone for it to proc, so it can't be used to circumvent kiting, but it does mean you can keep your rampage going once it starts. Helps immensely in PvE, where sometimes you finish off a pack of mobs really fast and then have to walk on over in order to continue, which breaks up the pacing of the battle and isn't fun.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Vid-szhite

[gibmachine]

Time to dust off that 20 something SI I started some time ago I guess.

[Schwarzwald]

I actually disagree completely on your Vengeance and Rage analyses. Since everything in Vengeance is really powerful, has a 9-second cooldown on everything, and its own strongest abilities make other strong abilities either auto-crit or cost nothing, everything flows into each other so well that you actually have a rotation, so rather than pumping out upfront burst, it slams things again and again with endless chains of powerful attacks. The survivability boosts are a godsend in PvP - Unstoppable in particular makes me smile every time, since it makes Casters all waste their knockbacks and CCs on you, and in Huttball it makes you the prime ball carrier. It also makes you an outstanding off-tank.

 

I too used to think Vengeance didn't flow well, but now that I've figured out the rotation, I almost don't want to go back to Immortal. It's so fun and so powerful that I beat Rage Juggs in PvP all the time, and I DPS so fast that even Mercs can't keep up. It might have very poor burst, but its sustained DPS is fantastic.

 

Rage, on the other hand, has very poor sustained, but extremely high burst. It borders on underpowered in PvE, and is really only comparable to Vengeance in PvP because of crit smash. Force Scream having extra damage (virtual auto crit + 20% dot) is Vengeance territory, so making Rage do more damage with it would kind of step on Vengeance's toes.

 

I'm no Rage expert, but I think it's perfectly fine as a whole, its huge burst balanced out by the back-loaded nature of said burst, and its poor sustained DPS otherwise. Vengeance is my set, and all I think it needs is to have Rampage buff Ravage when it procs, similar to the way Riddle does with Unload.

 

 

 

Immortal's playstyle is incredibly fun, and I agree this doesn't need to be changed. However, it does need survivability and threat boosts to put it on par with other tanks, and so people won't have reason to consider Vengeance Hybrid a tank.

 

You don't need 2 pve specs for one class.

 

But Soresu needs to benefit the class more then it does now. Right now Soresu is only marginally better as Immortal Spec then in the other specs, the only real noticble things is that you just get better rage generation while Immortal.

 

It needs mitigation on par with troopers/BH tanks.

 

I don't really agree with vengeance. There is no point to rolling vengeance in PvP at the moment unless you want to be a hinderance to the team. Its like Ultralisks in Starcraft 2. You only make them if you are really far ahead in the game and want to lose, that is how I feel about Vengeance. You play the spec if you want to lose, because Rage offers infinitely more damage then vengeance and Immortal does slightly less damage then vengeance, its just a really poorly designed spec.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Schwarzwald

[sippelmc]

What I would like to see Warriors get is to have our Force Charge refresh automatically when we defeat something. Wouldn't be OP in PvP, because you have to actually kill someone for it to proc, so it can't be used to circumvent kiting, but it does mean you can keep your rampage going once it starts. Helps immensely in PvE, where sometimes you finish off a pack of mobs really fast and then have to walk on over in order to continue, which breaks up the pacing of the battle and isn't fun.

 

Ya, that would actually be a great quality of life item. I suppose it might difficult balancing with linked packs of mobs where its non stop combat for more than a few mins, but maybe add it if you are out-of-combat as a qualifier too or something so you can continue to move from pack to pack outdoors. I hate walking to the next pack of mobs and waiting 5-10s for the charge to cooldown before engaging.

Edited March 5, 2012 by sippelmc

[Noyjitat]

I really hope the new abilities dont all require a companion. That **** is already useless to me in half the content i do now that im 50. I really can't remember the last time I used call on the force because im always teaming and helping my guild. I feel let down already but hopefully this won't be the case. I really wanted some other abilities to use on flashpoints and operations. Edited March 5, 2012 by Noyjitat

[Aethyriel]

this will not end well... hope they really just add skills (apart from that legacy BS nobody cares about like i need any skill from any class every 20 mins for 1 min Oo) and not change already existing ones or the trees.. I used to love my Assassin twink with his awesome mix spec with deception + madness, but since they've dumped it down it's just plain boring, haven't logged in since on that char... hope they don't destroy Annispec for Marauder but with all the whining how hard it is... omg I don't want to turn into a melee BH with 2 skills >_<

[AngelousWang]

The should add "Fear and other Darkside aura's" back in which are constant 15m AOE around the player de-buffs.

 

We could have.

 

Hatred: All target within radius gain constant threat towards the player and have reduced Accuracy - Immortal.

 

-Reason more AOE threat, more survivability.

 

Fear: All targets within radius suffer double DoT damage and have reduced Alacrity. - Vengeance.

 

-Reason more sustained damage, more time to interrupt cast attacks.

 

Enthrallment: All target within radius suffer double Armour penetration effects and are slowed -Rage.

 

- Reason more burst damage, more chance to land critical super-smashes.

Edited March 5, 2012 by AngelousWang

[Greywatch]

They sort of talk about that with the Legacy system. Their example was getting a SI to level 50 and making a Bounty Hunter where you select the ability to be able to use Force Lightning (but it would be limited by your Heroic Moment ability.)

 

No.

 

I'm all for legacy system granting skills for alts, but they have to be force-neutral, as in - no. No bounty hunters flinging force lightning about. They'd be force-sensitive and flung off to korriban in an instant.

[AKfourtyseven]

The should add "Fear and other Darkside aura's" back in which are constant 15m AOE around the player de-buffs.

 

 

I would love to see an aura that provided a damage debuff to all those within a 10m radius of a Jugg. The scaling of the debuff should rise in direct relation to the amount of rage. 0 rage = 1%, full rage = 10%.

 

This would be in keeping with the concept of a Jugg channelling the darkside and affecting those around them with the force of their will and passion.

 

"The Darkside clouds everything..." and all

[Iwar]

I do not mind new gear and new attacks etc. However, (to my understanding) I do not like that a trooper or BH, can now gain force attacks.(and vice versa) That being said, sharing attacks between faction and professions just ruins the game exp for me. You will just have characters running around with all abilities now. I mean whats the point of having classes?

 

Gain abilities from legacy is one thing. However, to merges abilities with other classes and faction, seems scary. (big game changer)

[AngelousWang]

I do not mind new gear and new attacks etc. However, (to my understanding) I do not like that a trooper or BH, can now gain force attacks.(and vice versa) That being said, sharing attacks between faction and professions just ruins the game exp for me. You will just have characters running around with all abilities now. I mean whats the point of having classes?

 

Gain abilities from legacy is one thing. However, to merges abilities with other classes and faction, seems scary. (big game changer)

 

It's directly link to to the 20 min companion mandatory ability, the only time the majority of people pop this is when fighting champs solo or own story big/hard bosses - which are instanced.

 

It not like your going to walk around every corner and see bounty hunters shooting lightning.

 

It just something to make the "oh crap" button a little better I guess.

Edited March 5, 2012 by AngelousWang

[hadoken]

No.

 

I'm all for legacy system granting skills for alts, but they have to be force-neutral, as in - no. No bounty hunters flinging force lightning about. They'd be force-sensitive and flung off to korriban in an instant.

 

'lore' and 'canon' are being thrown almost completely out the window with 1.2

 

Sith Pureblood Jedi Sage? NO PROBLEM

 

Chiss Republic Trooper? ALL YOU

 

etc etc

 

-note: I'm not upset about this at all, actually.

[AKfourtyseven]

'lore' and 'canon' are being thrown almost completely out the window with 1.2

 

Sith Pureblood Jedi Sage? NO PROBLEM

 

Chiss Republic Trooper? ALL YOU

 

etc etc

 

-note: I'm not upset about this at all, actually.

 

I will be rolling a Sith Pureblood Jedi Knight

[Rookss]

Immortal needs help in the threat department for AoE tanking. As it stands, not only do we have the worst AoE tanking ability, but our mitigation is also the worst overall (based on spreadsheet analysis on Sithwarrior.com - check it out if you havn't yet.)

 

Immortal needs some serious love - and I can't speak for the other classes, but tanking as a Jugg is very twitchy. Too many abilities are in our 'rotation' which isn't really a rotation - and it takes away from one of our very important jobs - positioning. Of course, you don't HAVE to use all your abilities and you can just spam your auto-attack instead of rotating all of your abilities.... but who wants to be bad?

 

I like vengeance, and I think the DPS is pretty good (despite what the nay-sayers QQ about.) Then again, my DPS set is 4/5 rakata so perhaps it's just very gear dependant. I agree that the tree has some talents that make no sense, and should probably be moved. (For instance the +endurance and +DR talents really belong in immortal.

 

Hope to hear more about what they have planned... As a former old school vanilla Rogue raider, I have a bias towards being pessimistic

[Evixy]

hope they don't destroy Annispec for Marauder but with all the whining how hard it is... omg I don't want to turn into a melee BH with 2 skills >_<

 

Couldn't agree more with that one :/ I like the skillcap of Marauders as it is. It keeps you on your toes and doesn't make you fall asleep like some classes in WoW and Rift could.

[coldserpent]

 

Vengeance - This tree is an absolute mess. Points are too expensive and all your bread and butter Skills are on a 9 second cooldown, which means you have to resort to rotating lack luster attacks. The dots don't really help much for PvP and the survivability talents are way out of place. There is no flow to it at all. IMO the survivability in Vengeance should come from doing damage, not from doing defensive things, if that makes any sense. Also they need to change the way pooled hatred works, it currently isn't that great and doesn't add much to your overall burst in PvP.

 

A ZERO cost Smash isn't a lackluster attack when mixed into a rotation. You can always Saber Throw, Force Charge, Sundering Assault, Shatter, Smash, Force Scream, Impale, Sundering Assault...or a various mixture of those, inserting a Vicious Throw here or there. It does flow nicely, just not if you panic easily or have fat fingers.

Hey, you can throw in Chilling Scream(if you go 7/32/2, for example) with zero cost to cycle in your rotations.

 

And part of Vengeance's survivability comes from initiating moves as well. Force charge onto someone, apply pressure. Or you can Intercede to a buddy, beat down on what's hurting him/Force Push the transgressor away, Force Charge to something else.

 

As for the dots, yeah. They could scale quite a bit better, but I won't shy away from a 20% damage boost to Impale/Force Scream which bypasses armor. They break stealth at times, and can add up fast when you Force Choke someone.