Buff Operatives

[JayPres]

Just take the cover requirement away from explosive probe and allow it to be applied while concealed. As long as the targets doesn't take damage from us the probe does not go off.

 

But as soon as we open, the probe does it's damage. Keep your gap close, I just want to be effective when I get in range.

[Dissentus]

Just take the cover requirement away from explosive probe and allow it to be applied while concealed. As long as the targets doesn't take damage from us the probe does not go off.

 

But as soon as we open, the probe does it's damage. Keep your gap close, I just want to be effective when I get in range.

 

I'm not sure that would be a good idea, hitting someone for close to 10k from stealth. I can see the OP are OP threads already. I do agree we need a little something more at the current time, though, but it's definately not burst damage from stealth.

[BraaxusKun]

Operatives are bad compared to other classes, sure they can burst someone down a bit, but when the person gets up and turns around they're screwed.

[JayPres]

Operatives are bad compared to other classes, sure they can burst someone down a bit, but when the person gets up and turns around they're screwed.

 

Nope.

[Dissentus]

Operatives are bad compared to other classes, sure they can burst someone down a bit, but when the person gets up and turns around they're screwed.

 

And this is why I still kill people with my operative, because people underestimate me. The class isn't completely terrible, it just needs a few tweaks. It is undervalued compared to other classes, but not worthless.

[TheLordMaster]

I have a concealment operative so I know your pain. But honestly geared OP's are amazing. We use two in our rated and if we have to ninja a point our operatives get the job done well. The stealth factor in rated warzones doesnt let the opposing team react at all, and their coordinated burst and CC absolutely demolishes anything. During team fights they are also very useful. They can provide burst on healers and also switch to off healing if our healers are taking burst. So keep your chin up good operatives are actually a huge threat in rated teams.

[Doktor_Ljubavi]

If Stealth is a gap closer, then the restealth ability should be a 15 or 20 second cooldown. Just like the other gap closers.

 

Oh, too OP? Then stop saying it's a gap closer.

[Coldin]

I don't even know if it's really an issue of damage. Sure, could probably use a little bit more....or have the current top DPSers tuned down a little.

 

But it's just besides the stealth (which another class gets), and the stuns/mezzes (which basically every class gets), the DPS scoundrel/operative really isn't bringing much unique to the group. No unique debuff. No unique party buff. Plus, probably one of the squishier classes after sage/sorc.

 

I guess at this point, I'm hoping for improvement with the level cap increase.

[Haystak]

There is no skill requirement for operatives/scoundrels is our biggest problem, if we get a buff of anysort it would have to be to something that requires thought, not just blindly pushing buttons

 

We have no procs to manage, or any real rotation secrets. UpperHand(Tactical advanatage) is usefuls only for Sucker Punch, and increasing damage by 4%. Our max damaging ability will hit for about 4500 on a sorc with BiS gear. That 4% increases that hit by 180. Wow....180 really, pugnacity heals for 2x that on a tic, so doesnt a Marauders hot. Its not something you manage, its something you just keep as high as you can by spamming pistol whip when ever its not on cd. Sucker punch with round two proccing is nothing special at 3k hits. So our one rotation mechanic gives us a neglible increase in damage, and the ability to use an ability that does nothing special, and costs as much energy as every other ability.

 

The only difference between a good operative/scoundrel and a bad one is gear, use of def CDs(nothing special), and using all of your good damaging attacks when you can without starving your energy pool. My only complaint is that our peak seems rather blunted at the top, I can still win in 1v1s; a combination of stuns, moderate damage, and properly timed defensive cooldowns usually garauntees it. Against well geared oppenents however that advantage is very slight, and can easily be swayed in your opponents favor by any factor that would increase the legnth of the encounter, as the fight goes on the scrapper loses more and more options as his cool downs start to hamper his abilty to maintain sustained dps, not to mention the double whammy of power regen.

 

Some would say this is a good trade-off, 1v1 ownage, good opening burst, and above average Damage within the first 8 seconds of the fight, in exchange for subpar damage after 8 seconds, no knockbacks, positional modifiers, or effective snares.

 

In a pvp setting that seems to be hinged on the effectiveness of gaurd, taunts, and coordinated heals, the operative(scoundrel) lacks any real tools to subvert these strategies. where as the mainstay dps classes can still employ tactics that apply pressure, the operative can be made null and void in certain situations, due to the drop off in sustained dps, and lack of utility out of stealth.

 

IMO the UH/TA mechanic would need to be changed, perhaps increasing its bonus damage for certain abilities to make it worth keeping, instead of using it for sucker punch right away.

 

I dont think a gap closer is needed, I would love to see a force leap that ends with shoot first, just to get that OH CRAP reaction from people, but in the end its not how long it takes me to get back to the action that pisses me off, its my effectiveness once Im there. I would rather see a change to our sustained dps, or some ability to helps us in the assassination department, like an ability that makes us ignore gaurd and lets us screw up that cocky healer.

 

I shifted to heals just recently just to experience a change and try something new but I have always loved scrapper.

 

TL:DR Please dont nerf me again. and I dont proof read my posts, so you can suck it grammor

Edited July 2, 2012 by Haystak

[Rompdomp]

They should get creative with the apply poison ability. Give the opp several options in addition to the damage poison like a cast speed debuff, damage done debuff, and a healing recieved debuff (maybe not exactly those just throwing them out there). It would give them some more utility and it would force the player to make a choice based on the situation. I know Wow does something similar with wep poisons for rogues but this would be different because it would be a short debuff and it would require an actual in combat split second decision. In addition give them a gap closer like a reverse grapple. You cast it at your selected target clamp onto them and get pulled to where they are (or something). Every other melee class has at least one legit gap closer might as well give one to operators. Plus the reverse grapple would work better than just giving em a sprint because it would be way op to give opp healers a sprint. I know this would not help their pve dps but it would greatly improve their pvp utility. Edited July 2, 2012 by Rompdomp

[Luciferhawke]

bah..caught a necro Edited July 2, 2012 by Luciferhawke

[Dissentus]

There is no skill requirement for operatives/scoundrels is our biggest problem, if we get a buff of anysort it would have to be to something that requires thought, not just blindly pushing buttons

 

We have no procs to manage, or any real rotation secrets. UpperHand(Tactical advanatage) is usefuls only for Sucker Punch, and increasing damage by 4%. Our max damaging ability will hit for about 4500 on a sorc with BiS gear. That 4% increases that hit by 180. Wow....180 really, pugnacity heals for 2x that on a tic, so doesnt a Marauders hot. Its not something you manage, its something you just keep as high as you can by spamming pistol whip when ever its not on cd. Sucker punch with round two proccing is nothing special at 3k hits. So our one rotation mechanic gives us a neglible increase in damage, and the ability to use an ability that does nothing special, and costs as much energy as every other ability.

 

The only difference between a good operative/scoundrel and a bad one is gear, use of def CDs(nothing special), and using all of your good damaging attacks when you can without starving your energy pool. My only complaint is that our peak seems rather blunted at the top, I can still win in 1v1s; a combination of stuns, moderate damage, and properly timed defensive cooldowns usually garauntees it. Against well geared oppenents however that advantage is very slight, and can easily be swayed in your opponents favor by any factor that would increase the legnth of the encounter, as the fight goes on the scrapper loses more and more options as his cool downs start to hamper his abilty to maintain sustained dps, not to mention the double whammy of power regen.

 

Some would say this is a good trade-off, 1v1 ownage, good opening burst, and above average Damage within the first 8 seconds of the fight, in exchange for subpar damage after 8 seconds, no knockbacks, positional modifiers, or effective snares.

 

In a pvp setting that seems to be hinged on the effectiveness of gaurd, taunts, and coordinated heals, the operative(scoundrel) lacks any real tools to subvert these strategies. where as the mainstay dps classes can still employ tactics that apply pressure, the operative can be made null and void in certain situations, due to the drop off in sustained dps, and lack of utility out of stealth.

 

IMO the UH/TA mechanic would need to be changed, perhaps increasing its bonus damage for certain abilities to make it worth keeping, instead of using it for sucker punch right away.

 

I dont think a gap closer is needed, I would love to see a force leap that ends with shoot first, just to get that OH CRAP reaction from people, but in the end its not how long it takes me to get back to the action that pisses me off, its my effectiveness once Im there. I would rather see a change to our sustained dps, or some ability to helps us in the assassination department, like an ability that makes us ignore gaurd and lets us screw up that cocky healer.

 

I shifted to heals just recently just to experience a change and try something new but I have always loved scrapper.

 

TL:DR Please dont nerf me again. and I dont proof read my posts, so you can suck it grammor

 

Doing damage with an operative doesn't take skill really, but target selection, keeping a target from escaping, proper use of CC, heals, and surviving outside of vanish do.

[Coldin]

I shifted to heals just recently just to experience a change and try something new but I have always loved scrapper.

 

Pretty much agree with everything you said.

 

And yeah. Healing scoundrel is like night and day difference. I feel so much more useful to the team specced healing than I do as a DPS. I'm not even that good at healing, or even have the right gear at it. It's just that our healing spec is so much better than our DPS specs.

[Daiyukie]

If Stealth is a gap closer, then the restealth ability should be a 15 or 20 second cooldown. Just like the other gap closers.

 

Oh, too OP? Then stop saying it's a gap closer.

 

This man.. is my hero.

[netskink]

They should get creative with the apply poison ability. Give the opp several options in addition to the damage poison like a cast speed debuff, damage done debuff, and a healing recieved debuff (maybe not exactly those just throwing them out there). It would give them some more utility and it would force the player to make a choice based on the situation. I know Wow does something similar with wep poisons for rogues but this would be different because it would be a short debuff and it would require an actual in combat split second decision. In addition give them a gap closer like a reverse grapple. You cast it at your selected target clamp onto them and get pulled to where they are (or something). Every other melee class has at least one legit gap closer might as well give one to operators. Plus the reverse grapple would work better than just giving em a sprint because it would be way op to give opp healers a sprint. I know this would not help their pve dps but it would greatly improve their pvp utility.

 

Interesting but I disagree. When I played my rogue I always used the same poison set. I never switched poision based upon opponent since it did not give me a clear advantage over the time cost of fumbling around switching posions. Maybe in a wz but never ever in arena.

[netskink]

If we are talking about buffs to the class, here are my suggestions for a possible choice:

 

o A defensive buff. Someone mentioned this already, but I'll expand on it. In wow, a druid can switch between a dps stance, a tank stance and healing stance. Operatives do not have a defensive stance unless you consider run and gun its defensive stance.

 

o Humanoid tracking. It does not help 1v1 that much but it would be great to have an operative be able to locate enemy players. So many times in wow when I was playing an alt and someone ganked my lowbie, I would switch to my hunter or druid and and use tracking to go hunt them down. Maybe it takes some time to get there but when you did find them, it was major payback fun for them to log to an opposite faction alt and have them say something like, "hey could please leave me alone, I am just trying to quest?". My reply would always be "and what do you think I was trying to do?"

 

o Tactitcal Advantage mods - Why not allow TA to increment/decrement and stack properly? ie. if you have two stacks of TA and do not consume one charge before it end it goes to zero. ie. if you have two stacks and the TA timer expires, leave one stack up instead of losing both stacks. Furthermore, allow TA to truly stack. If you have one stack its 2% bonus, if you have two stacks let it give a 4% bonus. Lastly, allow TA to stack to five so that you can get a 10% bonus.

 

o Fix combat bugs so that if you are dead, you don't respawn in lobby while in combat and thus unable ot stealth. Come on folks its a half year since release its time to fix simple bugs like this.

Edited July 3, 2012 by netskink

[kalamitis]

I would prefer some CD management than a redesign to TA/UP or increasing the damage of our abilities. SWTOR lacks of big CDs in general; CD like WoW's Bloodlust, Recklessness etc.

 

For Operatives/Scoundrels I would like something like this:

 

Carefull Shot. 90sec CD. Disarms the opponent for 12secs. A really, really good ability that is missing right now.

 

Duty Calls. 180sec CD. Whenever you are attacked by an enemy your moving speed is increased by 4% for 12sec. It can stack up to 5 times.

 

Tactital Superiority. 120sec CD. For the next 6sec all of your abilities don't consume the Tactical Advantage buff.

 

Cloaking Area. 180sec CD. Creates a an Invisible Area in 10m around the Operative/Scoundrel for 6sec. Enemies are confused and can't target into or out of the cloaking area.

 

 

I don't want all of these now and I would expect new abilities with the new level cap but still...

[Sideblaze]

In my experience, What i would do is lower the cooldown on shiv by 1.5 seconds.

 

That way you could chain Shiv>Dart>Lacerate>Shiv>Lacerate(Proc) Lacerate> Shiv

 

It would help the sustained damage ALOT. Though someone correct me if i'm wrong.

[Sookster]

Been seeing some WH augmented out (with fortitude augs) operative and scoundrel running around with 20-21K health and hitting pretty hard in regular WZ's, they don't appear much in ranked WZ because they wouldn't last long- I can understand why players would take their WH aug'd out to regular just so they can faceroll recruit and BM players and troll in /say after.

 

This seems familiar... oh yeah level 49 in purples in the 10-49 bracket... here we go again /facepalm.

Edited July 3, 2012 by Sookster

[kalamitis]

In my experience, What i would do is lower the cooldown on shiv by 1.5 seconds.

 

That way you could chain Shiv>Dart>Lacerate>Shiv>Lacerate(Proc) Lacerate> Shiv

 

It would help the sustained damage ALOT. Though someone correct me if i'm wrong.

 

Lacerate's TA can proc from the acid blade tic also. No need to dart in PvP if you try to burst someone. I'm not telling you how to play the class, just a hint

They increased shiv's CD in 1.2 so, I don't believe their going to decrease it any time soon.

[Aaroneus]

If Stealth is a gap closer, then the restealth ability should be a 15 or 20 second cooldown. Just like the other gap closers.

 

Oh, too OP? Then stop saying it's a gap closer.

 

Absolutely! I'm enjoying the scrapper and while it can be frustrating in it's current state, putting disappearing act on the same CD timer as force leap would make a substantial difference. Other than that, I don't think any other changes are needed.

[JediDuckling]

Let's have a realistic discussion.

 

In the current state of the game, conc operatives/ scrapper smugglers are a below average melee damage class. They can deal burst damage, but not as well as some other classes, while at the same time they lack mobility/survivability (these are the same thing sometimes). Additionally, they are behind or slightly behind other classes sustained damage output. To make up for these weaknesses they have only stealth, which loses its power naturally over time as player skill rises.

 

The main point I want to make is, to a well played ranged or semi ranged class in a 1v1 the operative is currently a joke. The class is simply trivial to kite and falls apart quickly once any initial momentum is lost. This might not be noticed by most players who have limited experience fighting operatives, and aren't aware how easy to kite they are, let alone ever try it themselves. I believe the classes weaknesses are set to be exposed with the release of any competitive pvp, which will give a clearer view of balance in high level swtor.

 

Think about huttball, where the weakness of operatives is actually widely recognised. All flavours of operative, but dps ops especially since they are melee, are weak in huttball. The class simply lacks any kind of mobility or utility ability.

 

I will give out a tip I think will surprise many players. When you are knocked on your face by an operative, this stun only lasts for ~1.5s, the same duration as the global cooldown. Many, many operatives will use another damaging ability in their second global instead of using their 4 second stun, leaving you a gap to use your own stun or mezz on the operative. If they do not have their cc break cooldown up you just ruined their entire opener and can walk to safety/snare the operative etc. - basically escaping unscathed. I see players fail to use this opportunity time and time again. I'm saying start trying to get out of melee range as your number one priority, because this is the achilles heel of the class.

 

I see the main argument against buffing operatives as being: on average, operatives are in an OK place balance wise right now, so why should they be buffed in any way? While I personally think that the game should be balanced around high level pvp (where dps ops are sorely lacking), many would disagree, and objective data won't exist until competitive pvp is introduced anyway. So I propose operatives be buffed in a way that corrects their worthlessness at very skilled levels of play, without altering the average power of the class which most players will face.

 

I suggest the mobility of operatives be buffed substantially. The amount of damage the class can frontload will be unchanged, and this is the part of the class people are sensitive about. Nobody is complaining that operatives can stick to their target too well, only that they 'just three shot them while stunned', right?

 

Imagine an operative with the leap of a marauder, only without the root or interrupt (in other words shadowstep). You may imagine an operative leaping out of nowhere and killing you very fast, but what is the difference between that and appearing out of stealth? Or, Imagine an operative with a skill similar to force sprint, only half the speed.

 

I think it's clear what I am trying to say, buff the mobility of operatives to make them competitive in high level play now, and general play in the future as average skill rises.

 

after reading this i creased xD

 

operatives pvp wise are OP they can take out single targets in seconds and do it without taking damage.

 

if you are getting beat then you are most likely fighting someone alot more geared than you are.

 

learn to play the class with the right gear and spec and watch you rip through targets like butter with ease without loseing any HP.

[Lithiid]

In my experience, What i would do is lower the cooldown on shiv by 1.5 seconds.

 

That way you could chain Shiv>Dart>Lacerate>Shiv>Lacerate(Proc) Lacerate> Shiv

 

It would help the sustained damage ALOT. Though someone correct me if i'm wrong.

 

 

I personally think my operative does just fine for DPS I have little to no trouble holding a target down and even if I am unable to insta kill every target i have no problem completely locking up a healer and making there dps focus me instead of our healers then AOE mezz and move on. The above fix would be the only thing I see in this long post that would make sense and not completely unbalance the class. The only other thing i could say would help would be taking out Survival Training and add an ability similar to the marauders which decreases damage taken by aoe effects by 30% and fix vanish so dots don't pop you right back out of stealth and the class would be perfect. I know i want the fotm class but i enjoy the play style and if like others say in here it takes little skill to play but it needs to be buffed, then take a moment look in a mirror and think about this the reason that your class needs a buff is most likely you do not possess the "small" amount of skill required to play this class maybe go roll a Marauder

 

 

Love Tineblade

[Campaigner]

Stealth is only a "gap closer" if the target is standing still and even then you move slower in stealth so...

 

I guess walking is a gap closer too.

[JayPres]

Stealth is only a "gap closer" if the target is standing still and even then you move slower in stealth so...

 

I guess walking is a gap closer too.

 

^------ Best operative I've seen. (no joke)