The Truth About Grav Round Spam

[Gerinth]

I'll admit it. I'm a grav round spammer. The reason? I'm lvl 32. I think where most of this whining about grav round spam comes from is the pre-50 WZs. Up until lvl 30 there is nothing else to cast. Now don't get me wrong, I love nothing more than laying down some AOE. Plasma Grenade is the greatest ability ever. I love chucking that thing at someone standing by a door in Void Star and then following it up with some Mortar Volley on people who never learned to run out of the bad stuff on the floor. No, what I'm talking about is some 1v1. When the other person is actually paying attention to what you're casting. That time when you bump into the Sorc halfway between objectives and there's no one backing you up. That's when it's GR time!

 

Full auto? I cast it every once in a while for ammo management purposes, but you need to be lvl 37 to get all of the points to really make it worth your while and get the resets so you can cast it more often.

 

Demo Round? Not until lvl 40. Even at that point it's a 15 sec CD and you need to cast 3x GR to get the full impact of it.

 

High Impact Bolt? At lvl 30 I finally got charged barrel, which makes it more appealing to use. Unfortunately you need 5x GR to get the full buff, and there's no Demo Round yet to break up the spam. But I still don't use HIB every time I get 5 stacks of charged barrier. The reason is we're one of the least mobile classes in the game. We have so few instant cast abilities that we can use on the move, and they're all on long CDs, that I like to save HIB for when I need to chase a target who's trying to run away.

 

By lvl 50 FA will get a 25% buff and resets to allow it to be cast more often, I'll have Demo Round to add to the arsenal, and the extra instant cast ability should allow me to comfortably cast HIB every time charged barrel is up. I'll actually have the ability to cast more than grav round. I can't imagine Commandos at lvl 50 are really just GR spamming, unless they're bad, but yeah you can bet when you see that lvl 25 in a pre-50 WZ that he's going to be casting one thing...b/c it's the only thing worth casting.

 

Now, how do we fix it? Well, obviously the game shouldn't be balanced around pre-50, but I think there are some things they could do. They could buff the base dmg to FA and HIB, and reduce the dmg to GR. Alternately, they could give us Demo Round sooner (but not soon enough that it could be grabbed by a hybrid spec). But my favorite solution to the early lvl GR spam? Two words - Explosive Round. If they put some skills early in the tree that buffed up ER, that would be super cool. It's got a nice graphic / sound, but it's dmg is pretty weak. I would definitely trade the minimum AOE dmg it does for a boost in single target dmg. Maybe even put a short CD on it and add a short DOT to it (causes the targets ears to bleed for x dmg over 6 sec). I'd be into that. Plus it would help us out with our mobility issues. What do you guys think? Are you a low lvl GR spammer like me?

[Lokeel]

This actually makes the most sense from what I have read so far today.

 

I will admit that a few of the ComMed nerfs are downright bad, but its true.

 

My Gunnery rotation is:

 

GR, GR, HB, GR, HIB, HB, FA and that is if they are still in range and not attacking me.

 

In my grill I resort to terrain and upgraded Stock-Strike to keep me safe, using ConcussionRnd if I have too. Defensive CDs used whenever things start looking bad and a fast Adv MedProbe.

 

Most of the time I will be pumping out damage using the above rotation because I do not have the other abilities that higher level Commandoes have.

 

In short, I agree with you entirely. I plan on rolling ComMed for PVP tonight having just hit 30 and gotten access to Trauma Probe.

 

IMO they should have made Trauma Probe cost 1 energy at most. Making it not free is understandable.

 

From what I am reading it is going to require more skill and resolve from ComMed healers to play their class efficiently.

[eMAeM]

The thing is most people arent even gravround spamming, but what everyones seeing is just the GR castbar and not your instants so they assume "AMAGAWDZ HES JUST MASHING ONE BUTTON" but in the end its what makes up a majority of our rotation. thats not a player skill issue but a class mechanic one... sad to see their idea of "overhaul" with patch 1.2 considerung nothing really changed except theyll be using more FAs inbetween. I bet people will be crying about those high Demo Round crits post patch cuz thats all they see on the boards after a game

[Gerinth]

Woot for improved demo round! I can't wait till 40 to get it. I've done entirely too much pre-50 PVP b/c I got bored with leveling, so I've really been itching to fill out the rest of my gunnery tree and pick it up.

 

I agree that people don't realize all of the buttons I press. I press:

Reactive Shield, Adrenaline Rush, and my Medpack, so that I can live a little longer and fit in a few more Grav Rounds.

 

My Adrenal and my Relic so that my GRs have more oomph

 

Tenacity so that I can wake up and cast more GRs

 

Cryo Grenade so that Operative will hold still while I GR him

 

Concussive Charge to give me room to fire off another GR

 

Stockstrike to give me room to cast half a GR before getting interrupted

 

Recharge Cells so that after I kill 3 straight people with GR spam, I can keep the party going on the next sap who walks in my line of sight.

 

I kid I kid.

[Lijun]

A great way to cut down on Grav round spam? Make the Assault tree not suck. Im playing Assault now just to try it. I feel it is probably the weakest spec in the game I have tried to pvp with. I can do some decent damage if no one targets me, but if they do, im pretty much dead. I cant go toe to toe with anyone, gunnery and can.

[Parali]

Greetings Troopers,

 

We understand that Troopers have a lot to discuss about the upcoming changes announced for Patch 1.2. There are already a few conversations going on, so you may want to join one of these discussions:

 

Trooper Commando Forum

1.2 Grav round Changes

 

PTS Forum

Feedback on 1.2 Commando (Gunnery) changes (nerfs)

Combat Medic

Prototype Particle Accelerator/Ionic Accelerator Change (powertech/vanguard)

 

Here's what Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller had to say about how patch notes, player experience, and data gathered from testing work together to improve the game for everyone:

 

Thank you for actually testing things in the game before posting. It's feedback from people like you we are interested in.

 

Games are not balanced on paper and actual gameplay impact of changes is not easily determined from patch notes, especially when so much of the surrounding game logic has been modified.

 

It is impossible to capture every element of change in patch notes, and it's even more impossible to prevent people from reacting to patch notes without taking the time to actually test.

 

We will be monitoring the game data coming from PTS, as well as guild feedback and constructive feedback based on gameplay on PTS and make adjustments and changes for the PTS period of the patch and beyond where necessary.

 

We hope this sheds a little light on play testing.

 

This thread will now be closed. We encourage you to join one of the conversations above or check out the Public Test Server forums. Thank you for your feedback!