Trauma Probe 1.2

[ImariKurumi]

Its is a good heal, but more to the PvE perspective where its a extended duration of fighting allows more ammo regen to cater to the 2 ammo cost.

 

In PvP where the battles are fast and intense jumping from one battle to another, within that few seconds, you cant afford to spend 2 ammo.

 

Also, if you include the 1.2 ammo nerfs, i still feel 2 ammo cost is a huge price to pay. Maybe pre 1.2, its reasonable to have 2 ammo cost, but post 1.2, trauma probe will be another greyed out skill/talent.

[Soltrooper]

How does it limit future content? Healers running around with unlimited mana pools limits design choices far more, because (again, pointing to WotLK and Cata) the only really way to make fights challenging are gimmicky mechanics like massive spike damage on the tanks or raid wide, unavoidable AoE damage.

 

 

Then they made a mad design choice. How else do you define a healer that has 13 discreet points from empty to full, whose regen depends on staying in the top 1/3. This sort of healer can't gradually wear down to zero over the course of a fight - if they aren't on the ball from the start rgey'll quickly get to low regen and end up out of mana. If they have good management from the start they will be healing forever.

 

I have to question whether you are a healer. What MAKES a fight interesting is those periods of massive spike damage or raid damage that you need to respond to. It's not like DPS, I don't want to do a "Max HPS" rotation. Sure I need to know it, but I like to heal so I can make meaningful decisions in a fight.

 

I think you've probably hit the nail on the head with the devs. They want a nice HPS that they can design encounters around. If that is their intent they should state it. It sure makes it seem like their are actually no healers on their dev team. In that case, this isn't the game for me, as the rigidity of the new model just doesn't allow the encounters to test me as a healer by presenting challenging HEALING problems - it just isn't flexible enough, unlike their current model. I guess I'm just supposed to unsub, it's a shame though because like so many others I've had the best levelling experience ever in an MMO, a blast healing with a completely different resource system, that I felt had a lot of variety for a new MMO. For the most part I think the feedback and response from the healers has been the best I have seen in a response to a nerf of any magnitude. But the devs and the non-healers just don't seem to want to negotiate to make healing an interesting experience.

 

There are many ways to nerf throughput while retaining flexibility.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Soltrooper

[RuQu]

After some calculations on the other thread i came to the conclussion, that trauma probe is really a bit overpowered right now, and a cost of 2 is still worth it.

 

Let me explain why:

I made a List of all heals and their HPS based on the time it take to get back the cost of it.

And Trauma Probe, with a cost of 0 (so only the GCD of 1.5), that is healing around 4-5k (for me with the given stats), is way more effective as the best heal (salvation on 8 targets). Sure, it is over a time of 30 sec (less because of the bug), but its still the best and most effective spell commandos have.

And this dont even include the ammo regen you have in this time.

 

So even with a cost of 2, the Trauma Probe need 3.3 sec to regen the ammo. But this would still end in a HPS of 1200-1500. And this is still more than our best heal can ever do.

 

The Trauma probe just have to change from a "i cast everytime i can because its free" to a spell that should be used with caution.

 

Thanks again for putting in the work, Aritok. I responded to your analysis of TP in the post where you first said this. It's long, so I won't repeat it all here, but the short version is that you need to make sure you are comparing the appropriate metric for a given ability, and then look at it in context and in terms of opportunity cost. Is TP a good skill? Certainly. In 1.1.5 would it be worth 2 Ammo? Probably. In context of the 1.2 changes to the class and opportunity cost for our now precious Ammo is it worth it? I'm waiting on test data or me finally finishing my new simulator, but my guess is no. See the link for more detailed analysis.

[CAMELOTCRUSADE]

Pretty good read so far, including the message board pvp.

 

So if the conclusions seem to be:

 

- A 2 ammo cost TP is of dubious worth in 1.2

- Having some cost is not entirely unreasonable

 

Then, should we not ask for a cost of 1 ammo instead? Perhaps that is the compromise that should be implemented.

Edited April 6, 2012 by CAMELOTCRUSADE

[RuQu]

Pretty good read so far, including the message board pvp.

 

So if the conclusions seem to be:

 

- A 2 ammo cost TP is of dubious worth in 1.2

- Having some cost is not entirely unreasonable

 

Then, should we not ask for a cost of 1 ammo instead? Perhaps that is the compromise that should be implemented.

 

Correction: Having some cost is not unreasonable...with the current Live Ammo situation.

 

It's like a meeting brainstormed ways to decrease Commando efficiency, and instead of thinking about the implications or which would be best they just said "Sounds good" and took them all.

[Aritok]

Pretty good read so far, including the message board pvp.

 

So if the conclusions seem to be:

 

- A 2 ammo cost TP is of dubious worth in 1.2

- Having some cost is not entirely unreasonable

 

Then, should we not ask for a cost of 1 ammo instead? Perhaps that is the compromise that should be implemented.

 

Its not this single problem. Currently, i would say, the trauma probe is really powerfull. But with so much planed to change it would not be this strong anymore. And is still changed.

 

For me it seems they have severall persons for balancing. Like one person per skill. And all had the glorous idea to change their skills. I cant see any other reason for this .

[Musezy]

I would not mind paying 1 ammo for TP... but 2 is just ridiculously expensive for such a weak healing ability. It would be like charging 2 ammo for Hammer Shot. I just won't use it after 1.2 at all. Edited April 7, 2012 by Musezy

[CAMELOTCRUSADE]

Its not this single problem. Currently, i would say, the trauma probe is really powerfull. But with so much planed to change it would not be this strong anymore. And is still changed.

 

For me it seems they have severall persons for balancing. Like one person per skill. And all had the glorous idea to change their skills. I cant see any other reason for this .

 

Makes sense to me. At any rate, I am just trying to save TP because I think it's neat and I enjoy it. If we don't come up with a clear suggestion, it's unlikely they'll do anything about it. 1 ammo cost seemed reasonable if it must cost something.

 

But I guess we still have no idea how they are gonna handle the massive blowback from 1.2 yet. Dig in? Tweak again? Listen more? Who knows...

[RuQu]

Makes sense to me. At any rate, I am just trying to save TP because I think it's neat and I enjoy it. If we don't come up with a clear suggestion, it's unlikely they'll do anything about it. 1 ammo cost seemed reasonable if it must cost something.

 

But I guess we still have no idea how they are gonna handle the massive blowback from 1.2 yet. Dig in? Tweak again? Listen more? Who knows...

 

So far they have done nothing to indicate that they listen at all, so I doubt it matters much if you make a suggestion one way or another.

[Sylriana]

Healers running around with unlimited mana pools limits design choices far more

 

The changes in 1.2 don't remove the unlimited mana 'problem' though, it just reduces the number of non-HS buttons the commando can press in a given interval.

 

The WOTLK comparison is disingenuous from the start though, because we're not actually talking about a class with truly unlimited resources. We're talking about a class with very finite resources who happens to have a completely sustainable rotation.

 

The problem in Wrath is that, barring a catastrophic raid failure, a healer could essentially do whatever the hell they wanted and not run the risk of challenging their resources. That's not even remotely an issue in TOR, as it's extremely easy to resource starve yourself if you overcast your heals, and the regeneration deficit is extremely punishing.

 

If anything I think we have the exact opposite problem with these changes. By making the commando less dynamic of a healer, you're forced to make encounters less dynamic as a result.

Edited April 7, 2012 by Sylriana

[Soltrooper]

TP is balanced by only being usable on one person at a timeand requiring damage to trigger (it can't be put on someone to eventually fill them up). Being free allows you to swap it over without worrying that you are wasting the rest of the healing (PVP switching to a focus target or PVE in a tank swap).

 

Sure it is good value with the raw figures, but the limitations balance this out. I think it's all right free - it's actually a good skill tester, as good use of it will make a difference, and skill testers are important. It needs a bug fix so that it doesn't double-proc and ir should also be an exclusive buff (so that only one CM can TP a player at a time). That would probably fix it.

 

It just can't be ammo-negative in 1.2. With increasung the AMP-MP cost, and healing down all around there just won't be appropriate times to cast it. A cost of 1 (and having it contribute 3 to SCC) would probably balance it enough to bring it back into play, but as the patch is still on there with no modification from feedback, and no comment except for the statement about behind the scenes changes (none of which are relevant to ammo regen) it's probably time to just give up. They never listened on Ilum, 1.2 will just confirm that track record.