Macroecon Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 By Georg Zoeller. Can be seen here: http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19979-guild-summit-interview-with-georg-zoeller/page-2 And he didn't so much as say it, but he virtually confirmed my suspicion that they are using aggregate damage/wz statistics to guide their nerf/class rebalance efforts. While understandable, this is IMO highly flawed and will be exposed as such once ranked WZs come into play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azrienov Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 (edited) He doesn't say anything. The article is dancing around answering questions, or attacking the interviewer's perceived issues with his game. He defends certain points, but when it comes down to it, he never says "BH are being nerfed like this." He does mention improving BH healing on the AoE side. He does specifically mention tracer missile. But really don't waste your time. They're still not sure what they're going to do exactly yet. Edited March 13, 2012 by Azrienov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ehlin Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Tracer Missile is a community favorite, and I can flat out state that if you pull the Tracer Missile stun on a skilled player, you are not going to live. It’s not working. Alright, if you know how to use interrupts, we see people stand there and they die. But that said, it is also dangerous to have people in a state where they can have a fairly decent DPS rotation with almost no effort. That isn’t good long term for them either. It is boring and it doesn’t add as much combat adrenaline as we want. So we did some changes there to rebalance that particular tree to move a bit out of the Tracer Missile, and require you to be more active in your combat style to achieve that kind of effect. You can call that a nerf. I call that housekeeping. I assume stun is suppose to be stunt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diviciacus Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I assume stun is suppose to be stunt. Probably, Also, quoting you instead of the quote you found for compression. I can appreciate them doing that. I liked how on my BH (he's only lvl 40) that as I went up the Arsenal tree I discovered more and more synergy between abilities; but at the same time, I didn't really like how most of it was symbiosis with Tracer missile. If they're switching things around to keep that feel where you're using each skill for a reason (beyond just the pure damage per time per heat/ammo), without the ridiculous reliance on Tracer missile/Grav round (which is completely untenable in pvp: either your target is dead or you are before you finish stacking buffs/debuffs), then I might finish off those last 10 levels on my BH. Wee! Changes without straight up nerfs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yazule Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 (edited) try reading page one where he says specifically and i quote "Tracer Missile is a community favorite, and I can flat out state that if you pull the Tracer Missile stun on a skilled player, you are not going to live. It’s not working. Alright, if you know how to use interrupts, we see people stand there and they die. But that said, it is also dangerous to have people in a state where they can have a fairly decent DPS rotation with almost no effort. That isn’t good long term for them either. It is boring and it doesn’t add as much combat adrenaline as we want. So we did some changes there to rebalance that particular tree to move a bit out of the Tracer Missile, and require you to be more active in your combat style to achieve that kind of effect. You can call that a nerf. I call that housekeeping." basically they are probably moving some of our stacking to other abilities, or lowering the stacks, who knows, but they want us to have more buttons to click, which i am good with Edited March 13, 2012 by Notannos quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mordredz Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 try reading page one where he says specifically and i quote "Tracer Missile is a community favorite, and I can flat out state that if you pull the Tracer Missile stun on a skilled player, you are not going to live. It’s not working. Alright, if you know how to use interrupts, we see people stand there and they die. But that said, it is also dangerous to have people in a state where they can have a fairly decent DPS rotation with almost no effort. That isn’t good long term for them either. It is boring and it doesn’t add as much combat adrenaline as we want. So we did some changes there to rebalance that particular tree to move a bit out of the Tracer Missile, and require you to be more active in your combat style to achieve that kind of effect. You can call that a nerf. I call that housekeeping." basically they are probably moving some of our stacking to other abilities, or lowering the stacks, who knows, but they want us to have more buttons to click, which i am good with Still nothing, speculation seems to be the ( IN ) Thing as of late... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buttered Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 hopefully they help out powershot, mostly because i like the pewpew sound but to me it should be in the rotation of any merc ( i know its not good right now thats why its not used ) give tracer a couple second cd and but maybe let powershot build heat signatures Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yazule Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Still nothing, speculation seems to be the ( IN ) Thing as of late... i guess you can't read well so let me pull the rest of the text out for you So we did some changes there to rebalance that particular tree to move a bit out of the Tracer Missile, and require you to be more active in your combat style to achieve that kind of effect. to they "move a bit out of tracer missle" which is in fact a tracer missle nerf does that mean it is a BH nerf? maybe or maybe not, if unload gets a buff due to the TM nerf then look at that, we could get a buff but he does DIRECTLY SAY that TM is getting nerfed just making it more complicated is in itself a nerf, because no skill players will be less effective. personally i think a more complex system will be more fun, but it will take more awareness of your actions to be optimized so it is a nerf ... ie your dps will go down if you do not change your play Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diddley Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Actually looking forward to this. It's boring to rely on TM cos it stacks debuffs, shield buff, and procs heat vent and unload. It'd be way more interesting if it was mixed up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheZen Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 i guess you can't read well so let me pull the rest of the text out for you So we did some changes there to rebalance that particular tree to move a bit out of the Tracer Missile, and require you to be more active in your combat style to achieve that kind of effect. to they "move a bit out of tracer missle" which is in fact a tracer missle nerf does that mean it is a BH nerf? maybe or maybe not, if unload gets a buff due to the TM nerf then look at that, we could get a buff but he does DIRECTLY SAY that TM is getting nerfed just making it more complicated is in itself a nerf, because no skill players will be less effective. personally i think a more complex system will be more fun, but it will take more awareness of your actions to be optimized so it is a nerf ... ie your dps will go down if you do not change your play It's not a nerf at all, they're basically saying instead of doing Tracer missile Tracer missile Tracer missile Tracer missile Tracer missile tada top dps, they're changing how Tracer missile will be used. As in Tracer missile, some other spell, more spell, stuff here, stuff there to achieve the same amount of DPS. You essentially will be doing an actual rotation of various abilties than just Tracer Missile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giobiwan Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I for one I'm cool with this if it means spreading the utility of our attacks...I respecced to full heal on my BH (which btw is a lot of fun) because I was bored as hell with my dps merc build, it was really a TM spam...and yes I know there are other attacks I know...but TM was heat and dmg wise the optimal one. So basically no need to use any other really. My 2 cents PS Now go boost our AOE heal!! *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onager Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 And he didn't so much as say it, but he virtually confirmed my suspicion that they are using aggregate damage/wz statistics to guide their nerf/class rebalance efforts. While understandable, this is IMO highly flawed and will be exposed as such once ranked WZs come into play. Um, how is data polling a flawed means of determining balance? You think all the uber skilled players chose commandos and mercenaries and thus those classes are overperforming, making the data skewed? LOL, no. They're not looking at the same screens you are. You know, as the developers, they can pop the hood and look at the actual combat logs that exist only for their own use and not ours. It's how it works. Every developer of every MMO does this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fizbanic Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Not a nerf, just making the class less face roll and require you to get skilled a bit. Only those that are afraid as I can see it would be the ones that know they will do badly at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macroecon Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Um, how is data polling a flawed means of determining balance? You think all the uber skilled players chose commandos and mercenaries and thus those classes are overperforming, making the data skewed? Not exactly but close. Everyone knew in beta that sage/sorc was OP. And the widespread consensus was that it wouldn't matter in the long run because sage/sorc would get nerfed back into balance. However the reaction from the "low skill, wanna be powerful" types was in fact to roll sorcs in particular. And now you can see the effect. There are a ton of sorcs, but half of them have no idea what they are doing. They spam lightning and don't use their heal debuff properly. In contrast if you fight a competent sage/sorc at full strength they will win all the time. Against ANY class. This is all going to become self evident once ranked WZ start. I had to giggle a little bit about the part in the interview where Georg actually contemplated premades filled with sage/sorcs. But his conclusion rather was that tanks won't be able to ignore defense stats once ranked WZ starts. Earth to Georg - it doesn't matter. The tank won't get an invite. Why don't you focus on the reason why a premade would organize with 8 sage/sorcs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yazule Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 It's not a nerf at all, they're basically saying instead of doing Tracer missile Tracer missile Tracer missile Tracer missile Tracer missile tada top dps, they're changing how Tracer missile will be used. As in Tracer missile, some other spell, more spell, stuff here, stuff there to achieve the same amount of DPS. You essentially will be doing an actual rotation of various abilties than just Tracer Missile. maybe not a BH nerf, but definitely a TM nerf... TM will be less effective, the definition of nerfing if TM was NOT less effective then game play would not change. The benefit of TM is not the damage it is the buffs/debuffs which make OTHER abilities damage huge. be as stubborn as you like, this is a TM nerf, hopefully it will be a BH buff in the process Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vassilbg Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 See, I do get bored with the TM spam, but its an easy set rotation. I do welcome changes where I can include other abilities in my rotation... But his reasoning is stupid. So because some ******* in a WZ doesn't pay attention to the guy standing still, and doesn't bother to interrupt him, we will nerf X ability. ***? Also, since when do WZs dictate what classes get their abilities nerfed? What does TM spam have to do with PvE? This is just dumb on so many levels. I guess its too early to tell until 1.2 patch notes are released but their logic just makes no sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalaesk Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 As long as they leave my Powertech Pyrotech alone I'm happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subrosian Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 THANK GOD. I just rolled a PT alt. I really like Pyro and decided I want to play a Pyro Merc. I was worried about taking BH based on the "nerf" talks floating around (having played an Operative, which has literally been made unplayable). If they're nerf is focused on Tracer Missile though, I can now level my class in peace. I'm all for Tracer Missile (for Mercs) and Force Lightning (for Sorcs) getting nerfed and having the damage spread across other abilities. The net effect will be that good players do the same DPS, but bad players will not be as competitive. Fine and dandy, leveling my Merc now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exphryl Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 May be a buff in disguise... Not having to rely on Tracer Missle for everything opens up more possibilities....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makavelian Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Having everything in the arsenal tree circle around TM makes it so linear. In prospect, keeping all the buffs focused on one skill makes things incredibly limited. If you want to keep a BH from getting heat sigs on you, stun and interrupt their TM's. Without TM, they can't make use of other abilities to their fullest extent. Migrating out of TM and allowing a more diverse method of gathering these buffs is more of a buff than anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macroecon Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 If you want to keep a BH from getting heat sigs on you, stun and interrupt their TM's. That strategy frankly doesn't work. There is no CD on TM and the heat loss from an interrupted TM is negligible. So the Arsenal will simply go right back to casting another TM. Meanwhile the target has lost his interrupt which typically is on a CD. This is the same reason why no one attempts to interrupt pebble chucking/force lighting. Sure you disrupted one attack, but the attacker lost nothing resource wise and will simply queue up more of the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keltonz Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Not a BH, but happy to see they want the class to be more engaging and less faceroll. Good for the game. Keep it up, BW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havok_bloodcraft Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 What? But this will make people have more than 2 buttons to press. Why? Just kidding. This is the best nerf ever. You should have been using multiple abilities anyway and anyone who pvp's should be happy about this nerf as skill will be more reflected by this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dastey Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I honestly don't care less if they just keep the class at the same overall DPS and burst potential. Also now while they are at it, give us some mobility! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temeluchus Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 (edited) See, I do get bored with the TM spam, but its an easy set rotation. I do welcome changes where I can include other abilities in my rotation... But his reasoning is stupid. So because some ******* in a WZ doesn't pay attention to the guy standing still, and doesn't bother to interrupt him, we will nerf X ability. ***? Also, since when do WZs dictate what classes get their abilities nerfed? What does TM spam have to do with PvE? This is just dumb on so many levels. I guess its too early to tell until 1.2 patch notes are released but their logic just makes no sense. He mentions the lack of a real rotation and the combat adrenaline feel for the changes to TM with a allusion to WZs rather than " Mercs be spammin TM pewpew in PvP, we no likie so nerfz" Still nothing, speculation seems to be the ( IN ) Thing as of late... Regardless if you deem it a nerf or not, Georg very clearly states that it won't be a 2 button spam class anymore. No speculation at all. I'm glad there will be a more complex rotation and hope to see some skilled Mercs tearing people apart with it. Edited March 13, 2012 by Temeluchus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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