1.2 - Combat Medic - Major Nerfs

[Soltrooper]

This is the one I don't get... what is cure?

 

* Cure now costs 1 Energy Cell (down from 2).

 

I'll presume it's Field Aid

 

The Changes to Trauma Probe make it worthless unless you are at full ammo and everyone else is full health (usually only right at the start).

 

Kolto Bomb isn't smart, so that really isn't much of an improvement.

 

Burst healing is crippled with the cost 4 AMP/MP

 

I kept looking for the "MP now costs 2" as that is the only thing that makes all of these changes make sense - trading off more use of MP for an across the board reduction.

 

If this goes through to live in 1.2, the only use for my Commando Healer main will be to add his Trooper buff to the buff of whatever healer alt I level to 50 so I can continue to heal.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Soltrooper

[RuQu]

I haven't played my Commando since rolling my Operative (whom I'm super excited about to play post-1.2), but even still, when I read these changes to Combat Medic, I was taken aback. It looks like everything that made the Combat Medic powerful is being nerfed: Supercharge Cells, Kolto Bomb procs, Trauma Probe.

 

The only justification I can think of is that the class was actually pushing out bigger numbers than players thought or were talking about on the forum. I realize that sounds like a cop out/fanboi defense for BioWare, which is why I'm not sold on it.

 

A dev response summarizing why these nerfs were made and how these nerfs compare to the other healers in 1.2 would be much appreciated.

 

I maintain a sticky on the Healer forum called the Healer Request Compilation.

 

It's a pretty organic way to view the state of the classes, as people who are having trouble or feel some tool is missing post a request and it gets added.

 

The Scoundrel/Operative section is HUGE.

 

The Commando/Merc section was much smaller, but still had quite a few requests.

 

The Sage/Sorc section had 3 requests. One was a request for more interesting skill tree choices, another was "we know Salvation stacking is OP and makes content trivial, so we want to preemptively suggest a change that isn't a crippling nerf and still addresses the problem." Those are the kinds of issues Sages had.

 

 

For a massive set of nerfs like this, the absolutely should have released a correspondingly huge blog post with all of the graphs and metrics used to come to the decision to completely disembowel a class that no players thought was OP.

[RuQu]

This is the one I don't get... what is cure?

 

* Cure now costs 1 Energy Cell (down from 2).

 

I'll presume it's Field Aid

 

The Changes to Trauma Probe make it worthless unless you are at full ammo and everyone else is full health (usually only right at the start).

 

Kolto Bomb isn't smart, so that really isn't much of an improvement.

 

Burst healing is crippled with the cost 4 AMP/MP

 

I kept looking for the "MP now costs 2" as that is the only thing that makes all of these changes make sense - trading off more use of MP for an across the board reduction.

 

If this goes through to live in 1.2, the only use for my Commando Healer main will be to add his Trooper buff to the buff of whatever healer alt I level to 50 so I can continue to heal.

 

You know....wouldn't it be funny to see that phone call as GZ calls up intern assigned to type up the Patch Notes. "Did you forget something?"

[germil]

Quick Maths:

 

Over a 30 sec period how much ammo do we regen?

 

8-12 ammos : 0.60 per sec

3-7 ammos : 0.36

 

Lets say we are good commandos, trying to stay most of the time in the best zone, so lets assume 0.5 ammos /sec. So in 30 sec : 15 ammos are regen "naturally". We can add 1.5 ammo from recharge cells (6 cells every 2min), 2 cells from supercharged cells (assuming 1 proc every 30Sec )

 

In total 18.5 cells per 30 sec are gained and can be spent in heal.

 

Now lets try to find the ammo cost of this nerf.

- 2 ammo from Trauma probe which costs now 2 ammos (this is very optimistic, because of double ticks "bug", and target switching, traumo probe is generally casted more than once every 30 sec)

- Advanced medical probes : 30/7.5 = 4 casts, + 1 (supercharged) = 5 casts => 5 ammos because the nerf on field triage.

- 1 ammo lost because of superchared cells proc now returning only 1 ammo

 

So in total this nerf cost us 8 ammos every 30 sec, which can no longer be spent in heal.

 

 

Now if we assume we are in a stressfull situation, which is the kind of situation were healing throughput/efficiency really matters, our healing throughput is limited by our ammo regen/gains.

Lets take a last guess by saying 1/3rd of our heal has no ammo cost (hammer shot and the 31 instant) and is not impacted by the patch

 

This nerf is equivalent to 8/18.5 * 2/3 = 35% less healing throughput.

 

 

This calcul is of course a rough estimation, so I won't take in to account other "small" nerfs (3% crit, 2% kolto residue, supercharge ner....). It would need of course actual testing.

 

But a rough result is we are going to loose 1/3 of our healing output.

 

This is simply not viable, not that much.

 

 

 

On a side note, I enjoy playing full heal or hybrid in PVP, and I admit we were rather strong. But now the hybrid heal/gunnery has lost its viability IMO because the ammo cost

are going to be unbearable. The full heal will loose 15% on supercharged burst with power shot (10% from charged bolt nerf and 5% from supercharged cell nerf) and 1/3 of its healing power, while still having very low AOE heal.

 

Waiting for further tests, and dev clarifications.

[Trog]

I think they trying to make uss more of a off-healer than main....these nerfs still S!ck

[LiveandDieinLA]

Coming from someone who doesn't play commando, in PVP, merc/commando healers were by far the most powerful class in the game, no one else even came close.

[Trog]

I think they trying to make uss more of a off-healer than main....these nerfs still S!ck

[Tipkaee]

Wow, my thread got closed that despite it being posted 1 hour before this one started for being redundant. I guess this one is growing faster (since mine was closed) so they are throwing everyone in here:(

 

With that said after thinking over these notes rationally I really think there are some simple fixes. If they simply revert the ammo changes

1. SCC gives 2 ammo like it currently does, and either

2. MP cost is reduced by 2 when you AMP

OR Tramua Probe is reverted back to 0 ammo.

 

As it is this is in insane constraint on ammo management. I can understand if they want to nerf what is unique to combat medics to help other healing classes like the kolto buff reduction, or restraining the SCC %, but taking away our single target effectiveness just to marginally add any aoe is silly. We still wont come class to other classes when it comes to aoe healing so leave our single target slightly better than others since our AOE is so much worse than everyone else's. Dont kill our niche, we have enough sages as it is.

 

 

*Maybe by some miracle this patch note is to be read exactly as it is typed

"Field Triage now reduces the cost of Medical Probe by 1"

That would mean MP is now 2 ammo no matter what right if you take the skill field triage right? Probably just a typo but that's the only way I can rationally read all the commando changes.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Tipkaee

[germil]

Coming from someone who doesn't play commando, in PVP, merc/commando healers were by far the most powerful class in the game, no one else even came close.

 

We were strong, it is true, espcially in pugs, where no focus fire, interrupts. Not " the most powerfull class of the game by far " , certainly not.

But 1/3 healing nerf (see my previous post) + more avaibility of 20% healing debuff (sniper) + melee buff = NOT VIABLE

Edited March 17, 2012 by germil

[Fight]

These changes suggest only one thing:

 

There are too many troopers in swtor. Nerfing the class into the ground will correct numbers.

[Wieland]

I don't know what you're talking about, SWTOR is a PVE game-- quite clearly. Do not nerf classes because of pvp (under 10% of the game population?) seriously.

 

That was one of the reasons why Tabula Rasa died. They nerfed classes to put in pvp.

[RuQu]

 

*Maybe by some miracle this patch note is to be read exactly as it is typed

"Field Triage now reduces the cost of Medical Probe by 1"

That would mean MP is now 2 ammo no matter what right if you take the skill field triage right? Probably just a typo but that's the only way I can rationally read all the commando changes.

 

This is the line from the patch notes:

Field Triage now reduces the cost of Medical Probe by 1 (down from 2).

 

Note the "down from 2." I will be leveling a Trooper on PTS to verify, but it does not look like a constant reduction from the notes. Just an unmitigated nerf.

[Jay_Stocker]

and i was looking forward to 1.2 ..... how quickly things change...

[Niypi]

Just ugh.... thats all UGH...

 

I was just starting to feel like I was getting the hang of my trooper and working around the gimps. Now... Ugh

[Mercykiller]

Holy Crud, they really don't know their own game do they? This nerf was completely unexpected and out of left field; it's like kicking a three legged dog just to make sure.

 

Bioware: "Hey guys, we're giving you one more target for KB!"

 

Combat Meds: "Uh, yay? Could you maybe make it smart healing?"

 

Bioware: "But we're not done yet!"

 

Combat Meds: "Oooo ....kay?"

 

Bioware: "We're also nerfing everything else, especially ammo costs!"

 

Combat Meds: "Hey, wait a minute ..."

 

Bioware: "Well, we're got to keep BALANCE right? See you later, off to play my Sage!"

 

I'm actually one of the most upbeat and positive people about BW, and hate the negativity that pervades these boards, but daaaaamn. Talk about out of left field. The only thing funnier would have been if they nerfed Scoundrel healing to make them 'pay' for their buff as well

[Arkanjil]

As every Commando read the changes for 1.2.....thousands of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

 

I am still in disbelief were are getting nerfed so heavily. I don't care much about the healing reduction, but the increased cost of our bread and butter healing is ludicrous. Reduce the healing a slight amount, leave the ammo management alone, it was challenging enough.

[Phatss]

I actually cannot fathom how they could nerf the ammo costs on EVERY heal we have. We are actually going to have no ammo about 40 seconds into a Operation boss on nightmare mode.

 

Good thing my group is using 2 commando healers. And to think how excited I was and hoping 1.2 would save SWTOR. Then my main gets completely screwed over in PVE healing.

 

trauma probe 2 cells i mean really cmon!!!!!!!!! It actually heals for such a low amount as is.

 

I do agree commandos are very strong in PVP. Fix them without touching my ammo.

[Mercykiller]

Perhaps we should start a new thread: "Post here if you are rerolling something with a lightsaber."

 

Ask not for whom the Assault Cannon whirrs, it whirrs for thee!

[Grimgrey]

Ouch. Ammo management on my Combat Medic is going to be a lot tougher in 1.2 if all these changes go live.

[Diableus]

I have defended this game a lot and I never post on forums regarding a nerf but this time I am making an exception.

 

Being a trooper in PVE is a nightmare and a lot of us out there know this, not only have the active group of us replaced all Alacrity almost out of our gear to improve our output as Alacrity destroys our ammo and we needed a lot more bang for our buck as they say.

 

Now then aside from the fact that we all know ammo is really hard to maintain in stressful fights such as Nightmare modes and Hard Modes, especially in 16 man. Now then if we follow these changes we can only deduce that they will make PVP healing a lot better for our enemies to kill us but hell I don't mind as we could heal through a lot. To the main point though it was never a difficult concept to make abilities react in PVP in a different manner than in PVE. Does destroying one to improve the other convey to your community knowledge of mathematics or formulae? The really important point any developer should take away from other MMO's is balance is incredibly hard but the intelligent developers recognised that multi format abilities improve one aspect and do not damage another.

 

I now plea to the class development department that they should look into creating a balancing factor by perhaps a debuff or dynamic skill change upon entering PVP to balance said issues. The main problem as many of us know is that PVP and PVE are totally different creatures and thus should be treated as such. I will not be as dramatic as to say I will un-sub or to say I wont recommend this game as I still enjoy it. What I will be doing is learning to play DPS though in the meantime as Sage and Scoundrel healing appears to be a better bet.

 

I thankyou all for your time and I hope you will all join me in my plea for a more balanced approach to class balance.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Diableus

[signahead]

Maybe some dev just couldnt kill Combat Medic trooper in pvp thats why they are nerfing this spec.

 

Combat Medic is meat for Maruder/Sentinel huge dps - and in 1.2 Maruder/Sentinel are boosted LOL!

 

 

I thought Ill get back to SWTOR for 1.2.. but now... this look bad, very bad

 

I'm not sure that these changes (except for the 3% drop in crit rate) will have much of an affect on PvP combat. They seem to be aimed directly at PvE.

 

For me, ammunition is rarely a problem in PvP. There's so much run-heal-run-heal-run play that I nearly always have time to regenerate ammo. In those rare cases where I do stand in one place and chain several heals together, it will be an issue. But it doesn't happen very often (and when it does, it usually means I'm seconds away from a trip to the med bay anyway).

 

Supercharge is something that I use a lot more in PvE than I do in PvP. With so many interrupts, knockbacks, stuns, and line-of-sight issues, it's easy to waste half (or more) of its duration. In most cases, I just build up the 3% Support Cell buff and save Supercharge for those hopeless last stand emergencies and the brief respites where the other team is ignoring me.

 

The 1.2 changes to Field Aid will actually be a nice little PvP buff. Since I use Field Aid almost every time it pops up (there are so many dispellable debuffs in PvP), it'll be nice to get some healing too.

[schwiz]

These changes are unacceptable. I will be embarrassed to even ask to bring my full rakata trooper into an op to heal after these nerfs. I just won't be able to keep up with sages and scoundrels. Our healing is going to suck so hard now, will always be out of ammo and I don't even see the point in picking up super charge cells anymore. Luckily I have a lvl 49 scoundrel, this will be my new main for sure since they got so much love in the healing tree. Really, really sad I don't plan on playing my commando at all anymore. I would just goto gunnery but they nerfed that so whats the point.

[wooje]

Sage and sorc healers did get nerfed btw - in as much as medics did, read the patch notes and get an understanding of sage / sorc abilities if you disagree. That is besides the point though, the argument shouldn't be who got the worst of the nerfs.

 

We as players can see that in general bioware feels healing is too strong. This was most likely swayed by some of the most ignorant posts I've ever seen on the pvp forums.

 

So the question is, for those on the fence about unsubscribing or not, is do you agree? Compared to other MMOs, it's not even close. From a pvp perspective, healers in this game can barely keep themselves up while keeping their groups up as it is. The end result will ultimately be that groups in both pve and pvp will require more healers to stay alive - which is ironic because there will be considerably less healers available. It will deteriorate both pve and pvp. Bioware will eventually fix this with a followup patch, but just the fact that they're so easily misguided (my opinion of course) makes me lose faith in them as a company.

[Savari]

Well... when 1.2 goes live I'll be respecing to DPS.

 

While we're at it, we all may as well roll Jedi and Sith, because they're nerfing the bumfuzzle out of EVERY non-force class in 1.2...

 

Sentinels are getting buffed AGAIN. Don't they already destroy everything easily enough? PvP whiners should be hounding Bioware about that... not because a healer can live through your dps... and guess what!? A healer surviving DPS is COMMON in every MMO. The problem? They can't heal others while staying up.

 

Much unneeded and this seriously hurts my own faith in them. I've defended Bioware many, many times in game and on these forums. Some of those "house cleaning" changes they mentioned I was half-way waiting to see them reduce grav round's damage, then reduce the cool downs on some of our other skills. We got the damage debuff alright... that's all.

[RuQu]

So the question is, for those on the fence about unsubscribing or not, is do you agree? Compared to other MMOs, it's not even close. From a pvp perspective, healers in this game can barely keep themselves up while keeping their groups up as it is. The end result will ultimately be that groups in both pve and pvp will require more healers to stay alive - which is ironic because there will be considerably less healers available. It will deteriorate both pve and pvp. Bioware will eventually fix this with a followup patch, but just the fact that they're so easily misguided (my opinion of course) makes me lose faith in them as a company.

 

I wasn't on the fence.

 

I was a very vocal BW defender.

 

I actively tried to pull old WoW friends into this game, excusing bugs and issues because it is young and talking up the strong points.

 

I had a 6 month recurring sub, and expected to be here as long as I was with WoW (2004-Dec 2011).

 

I have unsubbed.

 

This set of Patch Notes completely destroys any faith that the Devs have any idea what they are doing. They are good at thinking up new systems (story focus, Legacy) and absolutely terrible at actually balancing and running a game.