Class changes and balance in Game Update 1.3

[GarfieldJL]

is there still a way to be a good shadow tank on 1.3? or all hopes are lost?

 

Shadows will probably still be able to tank, personally I think the Shadow/Assassin crowd is overreacting.

[isnotrachel]

Why all the hate toward willpower tanks? We already take more damage, now our armor buff from stance is being reduced at the same time as our self healing? Really looks like only strength tanks are really getting love in this one.

[nDjiin]

QFT

 

A single healer is balanced so that it can keep a tank alive vs. a mob that has about 2000 to 3000 DPS (a hard mode flash point boss) and can spike 10K or so, all the while healing a group of splash damage.

 

Then you put that same character in PVP vs people who can do 1200 dps and expect everything will just play out.

 

This is exactly my point - simply porting one set of skills / attributes from pve to pvp does not work. The healing is a good example of this - I pulled an op healer into the firepit on huttball only to see him stand there and heal though it.

 

Another great example of how this whole system is screwed up is the fact that you are trying to repair merc dps so that they aon a par with powertech dps (if anything I would say it was higher, when was the last time you saw a powertech on the pve dps top 10?) . The reason mercs dont do as well in pvp is because powertechs are far more mobile and can surge better on the move. Its not to do with their resource management or ability to lay down fire. Altering this may make them better in pvp but its going to make them unbalanced in pve. Which solves nothing.

 

So instead of nerfing and buffing these classes you need to go away and get the 2 design teams to sit down and work out what you are gonna do about this issue - because at the moment it is a major reason why people are not subbing / resubbing.

[Vetilo]

While I am generally against bringing the nerf bat to bear against any class, I do feel that it is warranted in one case. That would be scoundrel healers. It's not that they heal too much overall, but I find that the ONLY way to kill one is with dedicated focus fire from a minimum of 2 people in pvp matches.

 

Now let me explain. I am currently playing a bounty hunter powertech at level 36. I am dps spec and I routinely have the highest dps output totals of everyone in a wz, including players on the other side. I leveled a trooper vanguard to 50 and I know the playstyle and what those classes can do.

 

However, whenever I go toe-to-toe with a scoundrel healer, I CAN'T KILL THEM! PERIOD!

I can get them down to very minimal health, and then simply run around after them as they have an ability to self heal every global cooldown tick that heals them for slightly more than I can ever damage them, and I am putting down 2K+ hits nearly every gc.

 

I am all about survivability for healers, but in my mind this is just a little too much healing to be doing to one's self, especially since they can do it on the run and it is non-interruptable. So basically, unless you have help, you can never kill a scoundrel healer. That, in my opinion, is just a little too out of balance. If it took me longer, but I could still burn them down eventually, then I would be okay with it. But I never can. Unless of course I am missing something here.

[oredith]

While I am generally against bringing the nerf bat to bear against any class, I do feel that it is warranted in one case. That would be scoundrel healers. It's not that they heal too much overall, but I find that the ONLY way to kill one is with dedicated focus fire from a minimum of 2 people in pvp matches.

 

Now let me explain. I am currently playing a bounty hunter powertech at level 36. I am dps spec and I routinely have the highest dps output totals of everyone in a wz, including players on the other side. I leveled a trooper vanguard to 50 and I know the playstyle and what those classes can do.

 

However, whenever I go toe-to-toe with a scoundrel healer, I CAN'T KILL THEM! PERIOD!

I can get them down to very minimal health, and then simply run around after them as they have an ability to self heal every global cooldown tick that heals them for slightly more than I can ever damage them, and I am putting down 2K+ hits nearly every gc.

 

I am all about survivability for healers, but in my mind this is just a little too much healing to be doing to one's self, especially since they can do it on the run and it is non-interruptable. So basically, unless you have help, you can never kill a scoundrel healer. That, in my opinion, is just a little too out of balance. If it took me longer, but I could still burn them down eventually, then I would be okay with it. But I never can. Unless of course I am missing something here.

consider your position, but from another perspective.

 

if you are the healer, and 1 person is on you, and you have no chance of actually killing him, shouldn't you at least be able to survive and run away?

 

it's not like the scoundrel is standing there toe to toe with you, healing himself up while killing you.

 

paper rock scissors.

[UCKFred]

It's nice for some tanks that they get increased threat generation, but I really didn't have a problem with that as a Powertech. I would really like to see the issue with IGC not doing the correct amount of damage addressed by devs. As it is I still won't be putting a skill point in Supercharged Ion Gas or Prototype Cylinders after the update.

 

As for Shadow/Assassin tanks, they were op in PVP and this change might fix that, but I think this also makes them worse for PVE.

[danpen]

It's nice for some tanks that they get increased threat generation, but I really didn't have a problem with that as a Powertech. I would really like to see the issue with IGC not doing the correct amount of damage addressed by devs. As it is I still won't be putting a skill point in Supercharged Ion Gas or Prototype Cylinders after the update.

 

As for Shadow/Assassin tanks, they were op in PVP and this change might fix that, but I think this also makes them worse for PVE.

 

Why do you think that thank you.

[Aieranda]

Sigh. I played Shadow Balance DPS and they nerfed that so I switched to Shadow Tank. Now that is being nerfed to the point where even some non-tanks are recognizing that already "weak" shadow tanks for surviving damage will be even weaker and they won't want them in their ops.

 

The self heals do add up over time and may be overpowered in their current form, but when you couple their reduction with the armor reduction as well it means I'll be dying before I can get a full cycle of my harnessed shadows built up to return to me my strongest heals.

 

I guess given the choice, I'd rather keep the armor and lose the self heals. At least that way I might survive damage spikes long enough for my group's healers to get to me.

[schmidtyfi]

P.S. and already people are crying for healer love. I play a sage healer and have no complaints. As far as I'm concerned they are as powerfull as they need to be and don't need an update. That's just me though, a skilled mmo'r.

 

I have no "problems" healing either. I'm effective at it and have cleared most content in the game (Denova HM is giving us trouble in non-healing related ways).

 

But, the Sage healer has been changed pretty radically since launch without any developer discussion. The changes seemed stop-gap and ad-hoc and now the class feels awkward, to me. To have the OP specifically discuss Tanks/DPS philosophy in such depth...well, the healing omission seems quite glaring...

 

Although I don't have "problems" healing, I also don't have nearly as much fun at it as in other games (ahem). Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

 

I hope you continue to have fun playing your Sage. I'll be playing elsewhere.

[danpen]

I have no "problems" healing either. I'm effective at it and have cleared most content in the game (Denova HM is giving us trouble in non-healing related ways).

 

But, the Sage healer has been changed pretty radically since launch without any developer discussion. The changes seemed stop-gap and ad-hoc and now the class feels awkward, to me. To have the OP specifically discuss Tanks/DPS philosophy in such depth...well, the healing omission seems quite glaring...

 

Although I don't have "problems" healing, I also don't have nearly as much fun at it as in other games (ahem). Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

 

I hope you continue to have fun playing your Sage. I'll be playing elsewhere.

 

Yes one thing you siad was, Some can not all ways heal they do not have the power to or did not pic it ok.

[ArchangelLBC]

Dear Devs,

 

First thank you for communicating some of your design philosophy and the reasoning behind changes. I greatly appreciate this kind of communication and hope for more in the future. That being said, the actual changes you're making seem hard to square with your stated philosophy.

 

Additionally in Game Update 1.3, we’ve made changes to improve the gameplay and quality of life of Commando/Mercenary damage-dealing specs. We’ve spent a lot of time playtesting and investigating the concerns of the community, and while Commando/Mercenary damage is largely on target, prior to Game Update 1.3, resource management made performance streaky and a little too unreliable.

 

We’ve made the following changes to the Commando/Mercenary for Game Update 1.3 to improve resource management and simplify stack upkeep for Gunnery/Arsenal specs:

 

Cell Charger/Terminal Velocity has been redesigned to passively restore 1 energy cell/vent 8 heat every 6 seconds.

Gravity Surge/Light ‘Em Up now additionally grants an extra stack of Charged Barrel/Tracer Lock and Charged Barrier/Power Barrier, if applicable, with each Grav Round/Tracer Missile fired.

Target Lock/Advanced Targeting has been redesigned. Now gives Full Auto/Unload and High Impact Bolt/Rail Shot 10% armor penetration per point.

 

 

Your stated intention with these changes is to make Gunnery/Arsenal ammo management more reliable, and giving a constant 1 ammo/6 seconds is certainly more reliable, however from my perspective it seems to be reliably lower. A raid buffed commando can hit 40% tech critical chance without much effort which makes grav round crit at 65% with the two piece set bonus. My gut instinct says that that will generate more than one ammo every 6 seconds. Can you provide the math showing that the change will lead to better ammo management than what is on the current live servers for a command with a 2 piece set bonus and a crit rate of 38-40%? Would that same fact hold true if Cell Charger was fixed to proc on Full Auto like it is supposed to? If the ammo regen isn't an improvement than you've just made gunnery DPS reliably worse, and I'm sorry but the performance of the design team to date has unfortunately not made me, or the community, inherently trusting of your math. Provide the math or please just leave Cell Charger alone. (All that being said, the change to charged barrel/barrier is very welcome, though I'd still like charged barrier to go back to 2% per stack).

 

Along the same line of thought regarding stated intentions vs actual changes we have the changes to Shadow/Assassin tanks.

 

We are also striving to make all tanks hit the same survivability targets for Game Update 1.3. Testing shows that the self-healing generated by Shadow/Assassin tanks is too powerful after the armor adjustment they receive via Combat Technique/Dark Charge. This armor adjustment should have brought Shadow/Assassin tanks to lower passive survivability levels than the heavy armor tanks, with the self-healing they provide making up for the difference. However, this armor adjustment was making them passively just as good as the heavy armor tanks, with the self-healing taking them a bit beyond our survivability targets. Rather than hit armor or self-healing too hard, we’ve opted to adjust both by a much smaller amount.

The healing generated by Combat Technique/Dark Charge has been reduced by approximately 50%.

The healing generated by Harnessed Shadows/Harnessed Darkness has been reduced to 8% in total (down from 12% in total).

The armor provided by Combat Technique/Dark Charge has been reduced to +115% (down from 150%).

 

My question is, if a 35% nerf to the buff from Combat Technique is a "much smaller amount", what were you going to have to lower that by if you just adjusted that and didn't touch the self heal? 35% seems like a pretty huge cut, though the overall impact on damage taken might not be huge I guess. However the whole approach seems to overlook the fact that while a 12% heal is well and good for mitigation over the course of a long fight under sustained DPS, the inferior cooldowns from these tanks combined with lower guaranteed passive mitigation makes such tanks easily gibbed if a lot of damage goes out quickly which is either going to limit the kind of encounters you can make, or more likely make shadow tanks completely irrelevent in end game PVE as more challenging, high damage encounters come out. Self-heals don't help you if you take so much damage that they become irrelevant.

 

 

Finally, some advice if you care to listen. In general, people are better at adjusting to small incremental changes rather than broad sweeping changes. If you took all the changes made in 1.2 and spread them out over a year, people would react much better, and most likely many of those changes would prove unnecessary. If you make a bunch of changes and break things you have to go through all the changes to figure out how to fix it. If you make one change and break things you know where the problem is. An example is the changes to Demo Round. You increased it's damage based on pre-1.2 numbers, then fixed a bug that was giving those numbers and haven't seen fit to change things beyond this upcoming change to charged barrel. You say commandos are hitting targets, but again you've lost whatever inherent trust you might have had. Which brings me to the other reason you should institute changes slowly. Because broad sweeping changes gives us the feeling that you don't know what you're doing, and aren't sure how to fix it. Little changes suggest things just need a bit of tweeking. Big changes indicate you did it wrong the first time, and big changes following big changes indicate you simply have no clue what you're doing. Right or wrong, that's the impression you give.

 

 

TL;DR Your stated design philosophy and actual changes don't seem to agree at face value, and small incremental changes would be better for you overall than big changes.

Edited June 6, 2012 by ArchangelLBC
Corrected a typo

[Dozoku]

well they actually said that now shadows are going to be as strong as heavy armor tanks they aren't going to be the weakest class they are just going to be as good tanking as a guardian/juggernaut or vanguard/powertech

 

so 150 to 115% is going to be the same lolz? bro go on your shadow or sin in the test servers man you will just rage how flipping horrible the class is now.

[MbaxterBeau]

I personally think healing on a sorcerer is fine. The only time there is an issue it's because of threat generated by healing (tank aggro change should help) or when someone in the party is in a hurry and will not wait which causes a wipe.

[JeramieCrowe]

so 150 to 115% is going to be the same lolz? bro go on your shadow or sin in the test servers man you will just rage how flipping horrible the class is now.

 

Sounds like you need to add your personal heal to your rotation... That is the stated design intent right there in the blog.

Edited June 6, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[Jordalx]

well i have a sage dps and i do a very good damage on pvp and on pve too actually i don't really have any problems to compare myself to the most dps classes and sage heals are good for pve not for pvp but on pve they are imo the best healers you can even do li hm with a sage healer easier than a comando

 

First off, Sage/Sorc isn't the best healer for PVP or PVE. There are better choices. Additionally, I do perfectly fine as DPS on my Sorc in PVP. But that is because I know what I am doing. In PVE, similarly geared, or lesser Mercs or snipers out perform me by a significant amount, even though they shouldn't.

Edited June 7, 2012 by Jordalx

[TheDetour]

I am very disappointed with many of the tank changes. While Jedi Guardians certainly needed help in the AoE threat department, the changes to threat are completely unwarranted and very unnecessary to the point of dumbing down the role to the point of boredom. Managing threat with intuition and a well managed threat rotation is something that I have always enjoyed about tanking. It is also a great way to separate more and less skilled tanks competing for THE most limited spots in an Operation.

 

With threat management gone as something tanks need to worry about significantly, what else is there for us to do? I can't understand a fundamental change like this. In every fight, each role has to worry about something that is unique to them. DPS worries about maximizing damage given the situation/phase, Healers worry about keeping everyone alive, and, prior to 1.3, tanks worried about keeping threat on the boss (with survival via cooldowns as a secondary concern)... with everyone having to adjust to the mechanics of the fight, whether that be not standing in fire, changing DPS targets, or repositioning the boss as a tank.

 

I do not understand how completely eliminating threat as something to be considered and, most importantly, worried about, makes the role more fun to play AT ALL. At the end of the day, every player in this game is just pressing buttons when you break down the MMO to the most simplistic level. By buffing tank threat so needlessly and excessively, you have made (on the whole) our button presses by far the least significant in the game. That is not something that anyone should celebrate.

 

Repeal the tank threat stance bonus.

Edited June 7, 2012 by TheDetour

[Dozoku]

Sounds like you need to add your personal heal to your rotation... That is the stated design intent right there in the blog.

 

Bro that's not even the point, the 115% armor is a huge nerf man. Right now a shadow tank can't even 1v1 a marauder anymore. much less hold 2 to 3 ppl. we just became the most horrible class in the game both pve and pvp. I honestly don't think they have any idea what their doing, it seems they are in panic mode because of in experiences players crying how "over powered shadows are" its bad enough in beta we were nerf really bad now this crap again is just bloody silly, i could have live with the less healing part but seriously 115% armor? just what is the point of even playing a shadow or an assassin or even playing at all? It takes skills to be a shadow and a assassin, far beyond the skills of easy class like 1 button spam for gunners. ( no offences) Now i found out they mess with the relics as well? this game just became a video game for 9 year old.

[JeramieCrowe]

Bro that's not even the point, the 115% armor is a huge nerf man. Right now a shadow tank can't even 1v1 a marauder anymore. much less hold 2 to 3 ppl. we just became the most horrible class in the game both pve and pvp. I honestly don't think they have any idea what their doing, it seems they are in panic mode because of in experiences players crying how "over powered shadows are" its bad enough in beta we were nerf really bad now this crap again is just bloody silly, i could have live with the less healing part but seriously 115% armor? just what is the point of even playing a shadow or an assassin or even playing at all? It takes skills to be a shadow and a assassin, far beyond the skills of easy class like 1 button spam for gunners. ( no offences) Now i found out they mess with the relics as well? this game just became a video game for 9 year old.

 

Playtest it! Over and over again. If performance is, indeed, falling short of target, they'll adjust it.

 

If it is actually on target, adjust your rotation.

[jgelling]

Agreed. Sage has an awesome healing kit, and tons of utility. With the blanket nerf to burst, their day becomes much brighter

 

If that's true, then the other healers are way too powerful because sorc/sage healers are noticeably inferior.

 

The blanket nerf to burst is important though, and wasn't apparent - I wish they'd discussed their thoughts on that as it relates to healers.

[krisknife]

Playtest it! Over and over again. If performance is, indeed, falling short of target, they'll adjust it.

 

If it is actually on target, adjust your rotation.

I have tested as well and my "rotation" is flawless it's not rocket science, it doesn't take any skillz, it's common sense to most. The class is fail sauce with 1.3, thank god I have 4 other 50s but seriously if BW is going to nerf over QQs they will be nerfed soon too, someone is always OP to noobs who don't read tool tips and skill explanations or understand their class's mechanics. This is a silly nerf, shadows/sins are OP only if you allow them to be, TKT is what restores health mainly and it can be stopped and a shadows edge defeated, they are not OP if you understand the game at all it's sad really.

 

Other tanks needed their buff, but the hammer wasn't necessary for the shadows, you just put that class in the "garage" for most of us. See how many play shadows lol, happens in every MMO after a harsh nerf like this, shadows/sins will be rare and noobs will scream about others being OP, wash, rinse, repeat and smile lol

 

***Hey Bioware serious, serious question I hope others press as well till we get an answer. Are you going to give shadows/sins advanced class resets? After all it did say when we selected the class it could perform a tanking roll and after 1.3 it will no longer be able to boast that. DPS (if you can call that vs sage) and utility will be it's bread and butter. Seems only fair. I would have picked sage as an advanced class if presented with shadow as a utility/dps build. Maybe I am weird lol

Edited June 7, 2012 by krisknife
added ***

[Ramahospitality]

Here is a post from the Smuggler Thread.

 

I feel, that with 1.3 coming up it is time to revisit two issues that BW did in 1.2.

 

1) Give Corso back his harpoon. Bowdaar is the melee tank so give us back the harpoon that let us preserve our cc's, and be able to use back blast, dirty kick, and blaster whip, as well as our interrupts, while still being able to keep our distance as a range class should.

 

2) Bring back the Giggles. Some people complained about the laughing when Upper Hand was granted and BW just up and removed it. Instead, they should give us a toggle and make it so only the player can hear it, and not everyone around them.

 

After 1.2 was released there was a huge uproar on the Suggestion Box forum regarding these changes and it's time for BW to make amends.

[DarkSaberMaster]

Playtest it! Over and over again. If performance is, indeed, falling short of target, they'll adjust it.

 

If it is actually on target, adjust your rotation.

 

Lol. On target? Wow. Sometimes I thing you type things just for the point of being on the opposite end of a disagreement. No where near is nerfing the TANKING aspects of a TANK class on target. And it wasn't even the survivability that people cried about in PvP. It was the DPS (even though it was mediocre) that everyone cried about. And yes. This change was brought about by the forum criers. Believe that bs by the devs if you want to that it wasn't about people complaining or about balance. There was no other reason to nerf the tanking trees of Shadows/Assassins.

 

The travesty behind this entire thing is that it won't affect PvP in the slightest. That loss of 4% to HS and the loss of half the bonus to CT is negligible in PvP. The people who cried to get this nerf will surely have their feelings hurt when this goes live and they are still getting WTFPWNED by every Shadow and Assassin on their server.

 

As I asked before. Since they have just now made PvE tanking mediocre for Shadows/Assassins, what is the point of the tanking tree again?

[krisknife]

Hey Bioware serious, serious question I hope others press as well till we get an answer. Are you going to give shadows/sins advanced class resets? After all it did say when we selected the class it could perform a tanking roll and after 1.3 it will no longer be able to boast that. DPS (if you can call that vs sage) and utility will be it's bread and butter. Seems only fair. I would have picked sage as an advanced class if presented with shadow as a utility/dps build. Maybe I am weird lol

 

I agree with darksaber entirely, PVP it won't matter this screws us in PVE folks, guilds run with the most efficient for the job that needs to be done. Shadows will no longer be tanks rest assured, the tree says you are a tank, but the tree apparently lies. Bad Tree!

Edited June 7, 2012 by krisknife

[Dozoku]

I have tested as well and my "rotation" is flawless it's not rocket science, it doesn't take any skillz, it's common sense to most. The class is fail sauce with 1.3, thank god I have 4 other 50s but seriously if BW is going to nerf over QQs they will be nerfed soon too, someone is always OP to noobs who don't read tool tips and skill explanations or understand their class's mechanics. This is a silly nerf, shadows/sins are OP only if you allow them to be, TKT is what restores health mainly and it can be stopped and a shadows edge defeated, they are not OP if you understand the game at all it's sad really.

 

Other tanks needed their buff, but the hammer wasn't necessary for the shadows, you just put that class in the "garage" for most of us. See how many play shadows lol, happens in every MMO after a harsh nerf like this, shadows/sins will be rare and noobs will scream about others being OP, wash, rinse, repeat and smile lol

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. the thing is i have other 50's as well and i am not going to brag i am a extremely hardcore play who knows what their doing. i fair if i even touch my other class the next big expansion they will be called for a fern as well because of cry babies who simply can't play. Many ppl don't think the shadows got owned pretty bad with the Nerf, i am here to say you are strongly mistaken. I've tested the class on the PTS and its just horrible. what they should have done was mess with the healing "only" the fact that they touch the armor is just plain retarded. we are already bad tanks compared with a jugg or a guardian but this crap just cross the line. They will lose money over this badly. According to them we are " too over powered" They don't even know what that means, i doubt they even see the marauders running around. why couldn't they just increase the cd on tele or force lightning? why would they touch our armor and self healing. What they should do is hire ppl who bloody knows how to pvp instead of following these New players QQ when they only been playing for a week or 2.

 

You know having a gm come on telling us we can't spawn cam in open world pvp, now this? only tells me they really don't know what their doing at all.

Edited June 7, 2012 by Dozoku

[snaplemouton]

Thank you for nerfing sharpshooter bioware. Very well done. >.>