Eshalant Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 (edited) Be warned, this is a book... As an experienced Gunnery Commando (at least I think so), I wanted to give my honest thoughts on the "nerfs" coming in 1.2. First a recap... Full Auto - Animation Rebalance Tiggers More Often with "Curtain of Fire" (Currently 30%) Mortar Volley - Animation Rebalance Effect Radius 5-Meter (Down From 8) Charged Bolts/Grav Round - 2 Ammo (Used to be 3) 2-sec Activation (Used to be 1.5) Muzzle Fluting Reduces Cooldown back to 1.5 sec 10% Less Damage Charged Barrier 1% Damage Reduction/Stack (Used to be 2%) Demolition Round 10% More Damage Bonus Damage Only Counts Your Stacks Concussion Charge - Tenacious Defence Reduces Cooldown by 2.5 sec (Down from 5) Field Training - Increases Critical Chance by 1%/Point (Down from 2%) I'm going to start with the obvious (Grav/Auto/Demo/Charged). For the most part I would have to agree with these changes. With the correct rotation ammo management will be simplified and I don't think DPS is going to be affected greatly as long as "Curtain of Fire" chance goes up to 50%. At some point every Commando is guilty of stacking Gravs with other Commandos and we love the effect (7.7K critical tonight with 4). But we all know that's not the way it was intended to work. I'm OK with it. Mortar Volley, the go-to ability for AoE. I wouldn't mind the nerf to effect radius if it weren't for the terrible selection of AoE abilities the trooper has. Having it affect 5 people in a 5 meter radius is completely worthless; it really only needs to be 3. BUT, I want to see flavor... Sticky/Plasma - Targeted Mortar Volley/Cover fire - Placed (5M) Pulse Cannon - Short range (10M) wide area cone First, how stupid is having cover fire placed? My bullets pass right through people and only hit you if your standing inside a small easily avoidable circle for not a great amount of damage. This needs to be redone. A better mechanic for this would be to make this a long range (30M) narrow area cone that doesn't need to be placed and is still channeled. This change would make Cover Fire more practical and add flavor. Next, Plasma grenade should be placed with 1 second channeling time. Who in the world would throw a grenade at a single target when they could easily hit 2-3 other people standing 10 feet away by throwing it between them? The effect radius should also be expanded to 8 meters and increased to 5 targets. The burn effect should be made active only a long as the target is within the effect radius; PvE mobs wouldn't avoid. This would give troopers a practical wide area ability. Let's put it this way... ( 5 targets * 5.5K damage ) / 3 seconds (est, 1 placement )= >9000 DPS (6875 DPS) ( 3 targets * 2.5K damage ) / 2 seconds (+6) = 3750DPS (~930DPS) Against a PvE mob which do you think is more useful? I can tell you from experience that with a 5 meter radius Mortar Volley is almost useless in PvP unless you KNOW you opponent has to stand there (stunned, disarming a bomb, capping a turret, etc..). Plasma grenade is currently only slightly more useful in WZs as long as you can drop it on grouped target; which doesn't seem to happen a lot as people are moving around. Now with the changes I'm suggesting... ( 3 targets * 5.5K damage ) / 3 seconds = 5500 DPS ( 5 targets * 2.5K damage ) / 1 (+1 placement) (+6) = 6250DPS (~1550DPS) Against PvE mobs the balance is much better, both AoEs are useful. In PvP both should also be better balanced with a significantly reduced maximum effect for Mortar Volley (25K->15K). Put all these changes together and commandos will have an AoE for all situations; hopefully the design intent given out lack of interrupts. Next up... Concussive Charge... Why in the H E double hockey sticks was the increased cool down needed? Seriously? Half of the time the darn thing doesn't work anyway; everyone stays put (they need to fix this, resolve shouldn't affect this). It really doesn't do much damage; 200-300. So why? I would rather they remove the damage effect, make the darn thing work (period), and keep the cool down the same. It's a utility, I get that, and not a particularly great one; unless your trying to get away or break caps in a WZ or knock someone out of cover. Field Training/Charged Barrier BOTH got Nerfed. I can't argue that both aren't nessecary, but both at the same time? I'd rather they whittle away at the problem one piece at a time. A drop in damage reduction limits DPS limits survivability limits damage output. This is a 1.2 punch in the gut for a DPS class (pun intended). Especially since no one really knows how this is going to be affected by changes to other classes. Best case, we're ok; worst case, they kill the usefulness of the class, people loss interest. Even if they later reversed every single Nerf and added buffs they still couldn't reverse the bad will that would happen as the result of Nerfing a class into dust. I think it's a bit much is all... I read the Q&A and I can understand putting limits on the classes; not having an interrupt is ours. Ok, so how about an anti-interrupt? As a DPS I've been completely shut down by interrupts and stuns and it's not fun. Interrupt Grav round, Demo round and Full Auto are on cool down with no way to refresh, High Impact Bolt won't work without a stun or Grav. All that's left is our basic attack, AoE (ammo intense and long cool down), Concussive Charge (if it works), Cyro grenade (assuming they don't break it), and Charged Bolts (assuming you don't need to move); and of course your stun break needs to be up and pray to what ever deity you worship that they don't have a follow up stun. Consider yourself lucky if you survive more than 5 seconds. I do believe there are real balance issues in PvP, but with this latest patch I have little faith that they are doing the right thing in correcting them. I don't want this thread to get off topic with other classes, but perhaps someone can point me to posts discussing why internal damage or the assassin opener isn't unbalanced. I haven't read the patch notes for other classes so perhaps some of those things are being addressed. To be honest I don't know, I only know my class and where I struggle. Most of the times in 1v1 PvP either I feel like I'm kicking some serious backside (sometimes 1v2) or I feel as helpless as a baby; rarely do I think, "WOW, that was a close one!" I'm interested in hearing what other commandos think about the 1.2 patch changes. I don't expect anyone is happy, but perhaps a dialog will open up with alternative suggestions for balances; or perhaps you think these changes are great step for balance. Edited March 25, 2012 by Paralassa content Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impericus Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Can't say I am a fan of the changes to the AoE radius. However, I really like the idea of cover fire as narrow cone and plasma grenade to a placed AoE, flavor wise. I hope this gains some traction with the devs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niconogood Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Anyone wanting to play a commando after 1.2 would have to be pretty maschosictic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oaceen Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 (edited) so the bonus to demo round is 10% per gravity vortex rather than a 10% intrinsic boost to damage? the patch notes were a bit vague on the subject and was wondering (hoping) it was the former. if this is indeed the case, it's a huge buff. that's a 50% bonus damage ceiling with demo round rather than 35% (if additive) or 38% (if multiplicative, plus rounding) Edited March 25, 2012 by oaceen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merc_Cmdr Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Commandos are probably the easiest class to beat in a 1v1 as they are extremely easy to lock down. I don't feel that our aoes make up for a lack of interupts and as you mentioned we have no way to resist interupts. I've already dumped my commando for a vanguard, its both a funner class and much more capable in pvp. As for pve, I don't see the patch harming gunnery commandos too much, though your change for cover fire sounds interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eshalant Posted March 26, 2012 Author Share Posted March 26, 2012 so the bonus to demo round is 10% per gravity vortex rather than a 10% intrinsic boost to damage? the patch notes were a bit vague on the subject and was wondering (hoping) it was the former. if this is indeed the case, it's a huge buff. that's a 50% bonus damage ceiling with demo round rather than 35% (if additive) or 38% (if multiplicative, plus rounding) No, the damage increase is a flat 10%. I believe you may have been confused with the other part which is the grav vortexes from multiple troopers stacking (which they no longer will). Basically as it is now, if you had 4 troopers with a full set of stacks, demo round damage would be increased 100%. After the fix it will only be 25% + the 10% flat buff they are adding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mishh Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 (edited) dono what youre all on about. in PvE we are getting mayor buff to our overall dmg and in PvP its only a slight nerf compared to other classes. Edit: Our main dmg source as Gunnery is full auto. So these chances are a huge buff to our dmg output Edited March 26, 2012 by mishh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oaceen Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 No, the damage increase is a flat 10%. I believe you may have been confused with the other part which is the grav vortexes from multiple troopers stacking (which they no longer will). Basically as it is now, if you had 4 troopers with a full set of stacks, demo round damage would be increased 100%. After the fix it will only be 25% + the 10% flat buff they are adding. no, i was confused by your explanation of how it worked lol. i understand how the bonus damage works now and will work after 1.2, i just wasn't clear on where the 10% bonus was going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts