Arsenal Mercenaries nerfed to the ground with 1.2 update.

[Niconogood]

nope. a buff for both. the cast time and resource cost will not change, since you should already have Muzzle Fluting in your spec currently.

 

heatseaker missiles, which is an instant ability, is getting a damage increase. barrage, the proc for reseting unload's cooldown, is getting a significant increase in proc chance.

 

the only thing getting nerfed is the damage to tracer missile. 10% isnt going to do a whole lot, you will see 2.5k-3k crits instead of 3k-3.5k crits that are easily obtainable now.

 

if you keep your tunnel vision for tracer missile, yeah its a slight nerf. if you learn your other abilities, its a very nice buff.

 

The 5k hit medal will be slightly easier to obtain, but else from that everything got nerfed into the ground. 30% procchance on full auto is already enough so that I can get it on one of 3 casts. And theres already a limitation for how often it can proc. Not that you will be able to spam it.

 

Demo round you will only be able to use once every 15 seconds. In this time you will cast at least 5 grav rounds to set up your other skills. This corresponds to a huge damagenerf overall. Using your math it can correspond to 5*500 = 2500 damagereduction in a 15 sec timespan, for an increased damage of maybe 6-700.

 

The most glaring thing is also how they make us easier to kill, we will take 5% more damage, which is also pretty huge in prolonged fights, they also make our only relevant defensive ability, conc. charge, have a longer cooldown, which means we will have melees beating on us for alot longer, adding up to a DRASTIC increase to damage taken and how often we will get interrupted.

 

Further on rendering Medic useless, and also nerfing the damage of assault, BW basically wiped out the entire AC from the game.

 

But whatever, its their game. I was only a paying customer. If they dont want people to play their game thats their choice as an independent company...Moving on to Diablo3/GW2.

Edited March 18, 2012 by Niconogood

[Luckorforever]

nope. a buff for both. the cast time and resource cost will not change, since you should already have Muzzle Fluting in your spec currently.

 

heatseaker missiles, which is an instant ability, is getting a damage increase. barrage, the proc for reseting unload's cooldown, is getting a significant increase in proc chance.

 

the only thing getting nerfed is the damage to tracer missile. 10% isnt going to do a whole lot, you will see 2.5k-3k crits instead of 3k-3.5k crits that are easily obtainable now.

 

if you keep your tunnel vision for tracer missile, yeah its a slight nerf. if you learn your other abilities, its a very nice buff.

 

You forgot about our Knockback, its worthless now, the only skill that was usefull for our Team on Hutball was nerfed to Death.

 

Heatseeker Missle has a 15 Second cooldown, so the 10 % Dmg Increase is not such a Big Deal. If we are lucky our DPs will stay the same.

[Grubfist]

I understand the slight Tracer Missile damage reduction. The thing I don't understand is that developers were interviewed and specifically questioned about this spec, and their answer was that they would be altering the build so people wouldn't need to rely on Tracer Missile so much. But they didn't do that at all, Tracer Missile will be used just as often as before, the functionality of the build wasn't changed in the least.

 

Anything that builds stacks and then has an ability that hits based on the number of stacks is designed as a build-up class. Tracer missile spam was too much front-loaded damage for a class that's designed to build up to the heavy hits.

 

They took some damage from tracer and moved it to the follow-ups. That just makes the class reflect the talents better.

 

I'm mostly happy that these changes obliterate the healing/tracer hybrid.

Edited March 18, 2012 by Grubfist

[GrantyJPS]

We will still have to spam tracer/grav as it sets up every other gd skill we have. No change to gameplay except unload/full auto will be used more often (still standing there stationery like an idiot, still interruptable, no change there either).

 

I like how the proc chance change for full auto is 'significant'. A slightly better (but equally fluffy) word than 'some' or 'a bit'. Is it so hard to actually give the new %ages?

 

Nerf to KB, nerf to our grav-spam shield thing.

 

So, no change at all in gameplay, whole tree still completely tied to TM/GR.

 

Less defences....ummm? I didn't think we were in any way hard to kill as it is.

 

Still no interrupt.

 

Disappointing really.

[cashogy]

The 5k hit medal will be slightly easier to obtain, but else from that everything got nerfed into the ground. 30% procchance on full auto is already enough so that I can get it on one of 3 casts. And theres already a limitation for how often it can proc. Not that you will be able to spam it.

 

Demo round you will only be able to use once every 15 seconds. In this time you will cast at least 5 grav rounds to set up your other skills. This corresponds to a huge damagenerf overall. Using your math it can correspond to 5*500 = 2500 damagereduction in a 15 sec timespan, for an increased damage of maybe 6-700.

 

The most glaring thing is also how they make us easier to kill, we will take 5% more damage, which is also pretty huge in prolonged fights, they also make our only relevant defensive ability, conc. charge, have a longer cooldown, which means we will have melees beating on us for alot longer, adding up to a DRASTIC increase to damage taken and how often we will get interrupted.

 

Further on rendering Medic useless, and also nerfing the damage of assault, BW basically wiped out the entire AC from the game.

 

But whatever, its their game. I was only a paying customer. If they dont want people to play their game thats their choice as an independent company...Moving on to Diablo3/GW2.

 

full auto is going to be practically guaranteed to reset every 6 seconds. that is going to make it a very spam-able hard hitting ability.

 

arsenal/gunnery is far from nerfed into the ground. if you do nothing but spam grav round for 15s youre still going to kill whatever youre shooting at, before you even use any other abilities.

 

the damage reduction buff was OP. i played arsenal, and I can attest to that. 5 stack of that buff, shield, and you have 50+% damage reduction. yeah, no problems there 0.o

 

if you think this is a huge nerf, youre a baddie. increased damage to a skill usable on the move, and higher proc chance to reset one of the spec's hardest hitting abilities is a nerf?

 

but if all you care about is tracer missile, yeah the spec got nerfed a ton.

[hugebaddie]

 

if you keep your tunnel vision for tracer missile, yeah its a slight nerf. if you learn your other abilities, its a very nice buff.

 

A very nice buff for PVE most probably. But if unload really is up every 6 secs plus the few secs it will take to proc it with a tracer, as long as its less than the 12sec cd of an interupt it may just work? Have to wait and see.

Edited March 19, 2012 by hugebaddie

[mamosh]

i actualy like the changes on my merch and they sound good tracer nothing changes really if you studie your skill tree and read truly you see that nothing changes but the -10% dmg

 

but for that our finisher gets buffed by 10% and the chance to proc unload (massive dmg and vent heat) is increased

 

i do think all the learned tracer skills should add same affect or a diffrent one to power shot to stop all the tracer spam maybe if you use power shot you get a 5x stacking dmg buff on yourself and a dot on players?

Edited March 19, 2012 by mamosh

[Bullsith]

With the cost of trager/grav increased, how many you think you can spam before running dry? 3? 4?

[GrantyJPS]

No increase to cost or cast time. They changed one of the talents (that we took anyway) so it now reduces ammo by 1 and cast time by 0.5s

[BizzyBeast]

Like most senseless crybaby threads, the "question" or topic is quickly refuted with truth and facts. After that there is no more replies from the original poster and attention whores take over arguing semantics to seem educated and 'hardcore'. Pathetic.

[Frostybrown]

As an Arsenal Commando i like this changes!

 

They just move the damage from the first 3-5 Grav Rounds to the Burst afterwards.

= DMG will probably be the same, but more skill needed.

 

When it comes to survivability, we will have to see what happens to the other classes.

We are free kills for meelees, but i think thats working as intended.

 

So actually there is not much difference, because before 1.2 you die against a similar equipped Marauder, and after 1.2... guess what.

[Astarica]

Unload is only good on paper. It's a hard hitting attack but it is not Tech attack, which means the whole mess of abilities that can stop melee/ranged attack works on it, including defense/shield. That said Unload is pretty much heat negative so it means you'll have more heat to use for other skills compared to before since you've more Unloads.

[BoDiE]

Mercs are the easiest dps class to kill prior to 1.2, so I don't see how that changes after 1.2. I'm just saying that all the QQ about their dps getting stomped into the ground is a bit overblown. Left alone they will still wreck people.... focused and they will get destroyed. Nothing has changed.

 

Sorcs are the easiest to kill not mercs

[SuperGrunt]

I think what they should have done was make it similar to the JK/SW 31 Point tank spec ability that gives 3 stacks of armor break and when your target already has 5 stacks on it the damage is increased slightly, but not enough that good players will be tempted to continue casting Tracer. Then even a slight increase in cast time so that we have a 2 second cast after the cast reduction would still be a bit quicker. Also the protection nerf was not really needed, and if that was treated the same as the Heat sigs would be good too.

 

I am slightly serprised though that we don't see whole premades of people using armor breaking abilities. I think they all have their own debuff, Those should be unified so that they don't get too OP. Granted then they couldn't be called Heat Sig but it wouldn't take much to change all the tooltips to reference the combined Armor Break , and it could be buffed a little to let us do a bit more damage or last a bit longer.

[Kellindell]

The only change is you lose 5% damage reduction if you spammed 5 missiles.

 

If you fully talent the arsenal tree your damage, heat and casting time is the same.

 

The only thing that got nerfed were the hybrid specs. Now the 24/17/0 build has less damage reduction and a 10% damage decrease.

 

Full arc BHs only lose the damage reduction.

 

The cast time of TM was increased by .5, but the heat was reduced by 9. Now muzzle fluting reduces the cast by .5 instead of lowering heat by 9, its the same thing.

 

Damage was reduced by 10%, but the 31 point talent had its dmg increased by 10%.

[VincentWolf]

Please stop saying about that grav/tracer lost 10% damage, BUT demo round GOT 10% damage so it;s all fine. It's not. We need to use grav at least 3 times, so we losing 30% but getting 10% from one hit afterwards with long cd.

If they'd at least buffed charged bolts to compensate, but nooooooo, same nerf too! And it was worse to begin with btw.

Probably first time in history I see a class that already had huge problems with another is only getting worse, while the winning one is only getting better/staying same. That's pretty much a complete and utter bs. I'm leveling a sentinel right now already.

Edited March 19, 2012 by VincentWolf

[Roysten]

Please stop saying about that grav/tracer lost 10% damage, BUT demo round GOT 10% damage so it;s all fine. It's not. We need to use grav at least 3 times, so we losing 30% but getting 10% from one hit afterwards with long cd.

If they'd at least buffed charged bolts to compensate, but nooooooo, same nerf too! And it was worse to begin with btw.

Probably first time in history I see a class that already had huge problems with another is only getting worse, while the winning one is only getting better/staying same. That's pretty much a complete and utter bs. I'm leveling a sentinel right now already.

 

100-10=90*

3

_________

270

 

10% of 300 =30

 

300-30=270

[Digtahk]

The biggest change which appears to have gone unoticed is that they have swapped the animation of tracer and fusion missile. This will make Mercs stand out a lot less and make it less obvious when one is attacking you.

[Bofromkentwood]

My complaint is they haven't fixed my need to rely on ONE skill to do anything, whether it be PvE or PvP. That is what was promised. And Commandos/Mercs NEEDED a 15 second cooldown on our KB ability, as it was the ONLY thing that remotely kept us alive. To the poster that said that we could have %50 reduction with shield up. I have seen other classes (heat of battle, didn't take note of which) that sat there through an entire buffed Full Auto and took 0 damage with a shield up. If FA is what BW wants us to start using, fine, make it actually hit for something then. Commandos/Mercs pre-1.2=super easy kill. After 1.2=super duper easy kill

[Niconogood]

full auto is going to be practically guaranteed to reset every 6 seconds. that is going to make it a very spam-able hard hitting ability.

 

arsenal/gunnery is far from nerfed into the ground. if you do nothing but spam grav round for 15s youre still going to kill whatever youre shooting at, before you even use any other abilities.

 

the damage reduction buff was OP. i played arsenal, and I can attest to that. 5 stack of that buff, shield, and you have 50+% damage reduction. yeah, no problems there 0.o

 

if you think this is a huge nerf, youre a baddie. increased damage to a skill usable on the move, and higher proc chance to reset one of the spec's hardest hitting abilities is a nerf?

 

but if all you care about is tracer missile, yeah the spec got nerfed a ton.

 

I dont even play gunnery, cause it is already a crap tree as it is. So prone to interrupts and LoS that you wont be able to do diddely squat against any half decent players. I played medic, but as BW effectively removed that tree as an option with 1.2 Im looking for alternatives.

 

The only thing Gunnery had going for it was KB on short CD and 10% damage reduction (putting you on 40% reduction against kinetic damage, not 55(?)). That is naturally gone with 1.2. I also dont think people realize how much of an impact Grav round nerf will have on damage, as you also much calculate critchance into the equation, and grav rounds critchance is 55%, compared to other attacks 40.

 

Dont say this spec is ok. Cause it was already weak before this patch (again playing against nonretarded equal BM-geared opponents), with this patch the tree will by no means be competetive. Neither will Medic or assault. Simply put, Commando is a dead class. And for those, like me, that dont have the time and will to reroll a sentinel/marauder in an already failing game, we have already unsubbed.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Niconogood

[svartalfimposter]

Expecting to see regular 5k Demo round crits (not spammable) and yet more "wah!" here.

[Sookster]

Arsenal isn't exactly nerfed, it's just changed to discourage tracer spammers. All you really need is 2 or 3 tracer shots (if you have additional heat signature) and move onto your rotation, in many warzones I've seen mercs shoot tracer 10+ times in a row because it can do 3.5-4K damage a hit, but in 1.2 it'll only do 1.5-2K at best, and possibly the 2 piece columi/rakata 15% crit bonus to tracer/grav will be pointless. Edited March 19, 2012 by Sookster

[Zunayson]

Operatives got nerfed HARDER, and they were already underpowered (I am NOT saying mercs are op at all.. I think they're quite balanced, like snipers).

 

Operatives were nerfed to the ground, now Bioware finished the job and nerfed us lower into our grave.

 

EDIT: Someone link me to Fusion Missile, I don't wanna become scared when my health drops low because I normally get scared when I see someone bend over with a missile on there back. Some mandelorian NPC had that and I interrupted the **** outta it.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Zunayson

[Axlah]

The biggest change which appears to have gone unoticed is that they have swapped the animation of tracer and fusion missile. This will make Mercs stand out a lot less and make it less obvious when one is attacking you.

 

 

Actually is some ways this is worse yes the animation on the merc is less obvious but now it puts a graphic on your target as soon as you begin to cast so no more getting the first tracer in before they know you are there. Also the new animation has a handy dandy laser pointer effect so they also know exactly where you are firing from.

 

As much as I hated the originals looks at least it didn't warn people they were about to get hit (assuming they hadn't seen you yet ofc).

[Foenixz]

not sure if trolling or just silly

10%tm nerf is not a big deal, its the nerf to knocback cooldown one of mercs"ohs***" button and nerf to power barrier which reduced incoming damage by 10% now reduced to 5%.

so overall slight dps decrease, still interruptable, now easier to kill.

post 1.2 merc/commando = free kill, just interrupt tracer, since knocback is on longer cooldown you can kill them easily now.

 

Wow way to read the OP's thread; granted it's in the wrong forum but your post had nothing to do with his concerns which aren't really valid.