1.3 Patch Notes are out

[TheOpf]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=463539

Patch notes found above.

 

AP and Pyro remain untouched though there has been a major change to the adrenal plus relic usage. Shield Tech got the Tankasin treatment ;p. Awesome that Rail shot creates an aoe for Shield Techs. I am eager to see how it affects pvp.

 

What made my day was the huge nerf to Tank Shadows and Assassins healing haha! Three classes remained untouched Sentinels/Marauders, Scoundrel/Ops, and dps PT's. Which we all knew were the three best designed classes in terms of dps output.

Edited June 6, 2012 by TheOpf

[exphryl]

I am just wondering if they are fixing ION's damage >_< I still fail to see that in the notes (Unless I missed it, all I saw was a talent change)

[TheOpf]

I am just wondering if they are fixing ION's damage >_< I still fail to see that in the notes (Unless I missed it, all I saw was a talent change)

 

They increased the threat it generates, and gave it an aoe splash. I think they decided to improve threat and not improve damage which is fine with me as it won't make them crazy powerful in pvp.

[maestruljedi]

Do you think the changes to Flame Surge/Flame Shield will kill the Ironfist build ? I was so looking forward to that with my leveling PT.

 

Flame Shield: The critical chance bonus applied to Rocket Punch and Flame Sweep has been reduced to 8% per point.

Flame Surge now increases the damage dealt by Flame Sweep by 6% per point and causes Jet Charge to grant 1 charge of Flame Surge per point, which makes the next Flame Sweep free of cost. This skill now requires Jet Charge instead of Flame Shield.

[iNeXxS]

Do you think the changes to Flame Surge/Flame Shield will kill the Ironfist build ? I was so looking forward to that with my leveling PT.

 

Right now from the looks of it, an Iron Fist spec will not work anymore in PvP. The single target damage decrease is really substantial.

Edited June 6, 2012 by iNeXxS

[maestruljedi]

Right now from the looks of it, an Iron Fist spec will not work anymore in PvP. The single target damage decrease is really substantial.

 

Goddamnit. 30% off crit dmg on rocket punch does seem a big chunk of damage gone. Maybe the free flame sweep will counter that somewhat... but it's doubtful, isn't it.

[UCKFred]

They increased the threat it generates, and gave it an aoe splash. I think they decided to improve threat and not improve damage which is fine with me as it won't make them crazy powerful in pvp.

 

It would still be nice to know if it was the tooltip that was wrong or it really wasn't dealing the right amount of damage.

[Agooz]

Powertech

 

Ion Gas Cylinder now generates 100% additional threat while active.

 

Shield Tech

Supercharged Ion Gas now increases Ion Overload damage by 25%. While Ion Gas Cylinder is active, Rail Shot triggers your Ion Gas Cylinder on the target and up to 4 additional nearby targets. This damage does not affect sleeping, lifted, or incapacitated enemies. This generates a high amount of threat.

Flame Shield: The critical chance bonus applied to Rocket Punch and Flame Sweep has been reduced to 8% per point.

Flame Surge now increases the damage dealt by Flame Sweep by 6% per point and causes Jet Charge to grant 1 charge of Flame Surge per point, which makes the next Flame Sweep free of cost. This skill now requires Jet Charge instead of Flame Shield.

 

That to me is a PvE buff, mainly to threat generation, which we didnt really need.

 

AND a PvP nerf in a way, which is the opposite of what were hoping for. Instead of more survivability or more damage output, they give us another proc for a free flamesweep.

 

Really shows that this AC team has ZERO connection to actual gameplay and completely ignore their playerbase's feedback..

[Twickers]

Hey, at least you didn't receive these massive nerfs most people are screaming that you guys need.

[exphryl]

I'm just curious how our Operative Healer Overlords will be handled now without being able to stack power ups. Little ***** are a pain if they have any idea how to play >_< but that's another issue for another thread somewhere.

 

I am glad though they went to the cooldown/powerup nerf rather than nerfing our DPS hugely in PvP instead. Actually was a good move. (Speaking about pyro) In a way it will most likely show how in line we are now compared to other classes.

 

May have to stop playing D3 for a bit with this patch :X

 

Although I still had a bit of hope they would make Pyro not be entirely RNG based and add a bit more dynamic play style to it. Guess I get to spend another patch hoping for procs.

 

I am also impressed they made it so the Ion AOE doesn't affect CC'd targets. I have the strangest feeling though they'll mess up that up somehow.

Edited June 6, 2012 by exphryl

[Besta]

Bioware , another time proved , that they are clueless in their own game. Pyrotech's are not nerfed, but powertech tanks got a huge nerf for no reason, being worst tank on live servers already, will be unplayable because of worst defense and offense

[TheOpf]

I'm just curious how our Operative Healer Overlords will be handled now without being able to stack power ups. Little ***** are a pain if they have any idea how to play >_< but that's another issue for another thread somewhere.

 

I am glad though they went to the cooldown/powerup nerf rather than nerfing our DPS hugely in PvP instead. Actually was a good move. (Speaking about pyro) In a way it will most likely show how in line we are now compared to other classes.

 

May have to stop playing D3 for a bit with this patch :X

 

Although I still had a bit of hope they would make Pyro not be entirely RNG based and add a bit more dynamic play style to it. Guess I get to spend another patch hoping for procs.

 

I am also impressed they made it so the Ion AOE doesn't affect CC'd targets. I have the strangest feeling though they'll mess up that up somehow.

 

I think the adrenal change is going to nerf damage across the board. Mara's and PT's will have to find new ways to play, and live a bit longer. The big op change is the reduction to self healing that was crushed. BTW, AP needs some more variables added to it rather than Pyro. In all honesty you use what 4 or 5 attacks, and AP uses 3 maybe at most. We might use RB if we feel like it, but we are just as successful in pvp without it. I have actually stopped playing my pt in pvp because it has gotten so boring. Immolate, FB x4, Rocket punch, flame thrower rinse and repeat, and I destroy large groups. At least Vanguards with their broken PG used all their aoe attacks. AP is just boring.

 

Compare PT ability usage (Main Crux of TD/RP/RS/FB) with say a

Guardian - At least 4-5 attacks only 2 if you are an idiot. (I hate to say this but Guardians are so frustrating to play before 30).

Sentinels - 5-6 attacks on average

Operatives - 5 attacks plus ta procs making you decide whether you want to recover energy, quick heal, or do a different aoe. (I don't play Concealment since it's just 3 buttons haha).

 

I am playing a Lethality operative, and here is my standard attack rotation. Corrosive Dart, Corrosive grenade, fire shots until I close in and then shiv, backstab, shiv again, pop stim boost, back to backstab, quick shot, and I don't even have Cull or weakening blast yet. Plus I have grenades and cover attacks that I use in aoe situations.

 

Dynamic playstyle just isn't in the Pyro or AP fights. Granted the reason I love AP and Norse is because it gave me so much freedom to do other stuff while attacking. Pyro doesn't it's just wham bam, thank you ma'am.

[TheOpf]

Bioware , another time proved , that they are clueless in their own game. Pyrotech's are not nerfed, but powertech tanks got a huge nerf for no reason, being worst tank on live servers already, will be unplayable because of worst defense and offense

 

Actually, Assassins/Shadows got nerfed big time. Self healing and armor reductions for them, what exactly was nerfed for shield techs outside of damage?

[Sookster]

I'm eager to see how my shields PT turns out.

[JidaiGeki]

You're gonna turn out hitting like a wet noodle in WZ's. Yes, we're not supposed to be hitting for huge damage, but WE'RE ALREADY NOT HITTING FOR HUGE DAMAGE. I've yet to get a 2.5k damage medal and I'm full BM tank.

[Teioh_White]

The 18% loss of damage overall on rocket punch is pretty bad, since as it's our highest hitting attack on average, and something we fire out about every 3.5 GCD. Free flame sweep after charge is sorta nice for running through Flash Points, but will still be outweighed by the nerf to single target damage.

 

AoE effect on Iron cylinder seems very meh, as it does crazy low damage, and it's main point in life is to set up rail shots, not do any sort of threat.

 

Seems they just want to lower the damage tanks do, unable to come up to a solution for pvp tanks in dps gear, and give us 40% more threat to compensate, as well as make it easier to not have bad tanks for group finder. As all MMO's do, becomes a little more faceroll simple each patch.

[JidaiGeki]

They've also nerfed damage to ion overload, since it no longer lasts for 9 secs talented but 6. The mind boggles as to why they felt it was necessary to gimp such an underplayed tree further.

[SeventhHell]

Why nerf the DPS a powertech tank can do? They can't do any to begin with. A powertech in our guild has full War Hero and the only way he can even get a 2.5 medal is if his opponents gear sucks in comparison. Bioware stop focusing PVE, you are just messing up PVP. Do you even play PVP on your own game? Doesn't seem like it. I play a Sorc healer and I can kill Powertech tanks easily since they don't do enough DPS to kill me.

[Marb]

"Ion Gas Cylinder now generates 100% additional threat while active."

The threat buff on ion gas cylinder is cool, but still no word on fixing either the bugged damage or bugged tool-tip on this cylinder.

 

"Supercharged Ion Gas now increases Ion Overload damage by 25%. While Ion Gas Cylinder is active, Rail Shot triggers your Ion Gas Cylinder on the target and up to 4 additional nearby targets. This damage does not affect sleeping, lifted, or incapacitated enemies. This generates a high amount of threat."

The wording looks as though the dot portion of ion gas when talented got a damage increase? Its hard to decipher. "Ion Overload" refers to the dot I *think*, so if that's the case the duration nerf is understandable. Rail shot spreading ion gas is novel, but ion gas just doesn't do enough damage for this to be very exciting. The potential of an AoE slow in PvP is cool, but the way the talent trees are structured, picking up the slow is not practical without sacrificing damage or mitigation for a PvE build.

 

"Flame Shield: The critical chance bonus applied to Rocket Punch and Flame Sweep has been reduced to 8% per point."

Nerf, not sure what the reasoning is here.

 

"Flame Surge now increases the damage dealt by Flame Sweep by 6% per point and causes Jet Charge to grant 1 charge of Flame Surge per point, which makes the next Flame Sweep free of cost. This skill now requires Jet Charge instead of Flame Shield."

The loss of the rocket punch crit damage is completely undeserved, and I am keen to hear their reasoning for this. Most of our damage and threat comes from this ability.

Edited June 7, 2012 by Marb

[TheOpf]

"Ion Gas Cylinder now generates 100% additional threat while active."

The threat buff on ion gas cylinder is cool, but still no word on fixing either the bugged damage or bugged tool-tip on this cylinder.

 

"Supercharged Ion Gas now increases Ion Overload damage by 25%. While Ion Gas Cylinder is active, Rail Shot triggers your Ion Gas Cylinder on the target and up to 4 additional nearby targets. This damage does not affect sleeping, lifted, or incapacitated enemies. This generates a high amount of threat."

The wording looks as though the dot portion of ion gas when talented got a damage increase? Its hard to decipher. "Ion Overload" refers to the dot I *think*, so if that's the case the duration nerf is understandable. Rail shot spreading ion gas is novel, but ion gas just doesn't do enough damage for this to be very exiting. The potential of an AoE slow in PvP is cool, but the way the talent trees are structured, picking up the slow is not practical without sacrificing damage or mitigation for a PvE build.

 

"Flame Shield: The critical chance bonus applied to Rocket Punch and Flame Sweep has been reduced to 8% per point."

Nerf, not sure what the reasoning is here.

 

"Flame Surge now increases the damage dealt by Flame Sweep by 6% per point and causes Jet Charge to grant 1 charge of Flame Surge per point, which makes the next Flame Sweep free of cost. This skill now requires Jet Charge instead of Flame Shield."

The loss of the rocket punch crit damage is completely undeserved, and I am keen to hear their reasoning for this. Most of our damage and threat comes from this ability.

 

They are pushing tanks to a support role in pvp without sacrificing threat in pve. What they don't want is another Tankassins dominating wz's because you can't kill the buggers and they can do some serious damage too. It's not the end of the world, but you may want to switch to tank pvp gear to stay alive a little longer ;p.

[Jewa_taken]

They've also nerfed damage to ion overload, since it no longer lasts for 9 secs talented but 6. The mind boggles as to why they felt it was necessary to gimp such an underplayed tree further.

"Supercharged Ion Gas now increases Ion Overload damage by 25%. While Ion Gas Cylinder is active, Rail Shot triggers your Ion Gas Cylinder on the target and up to 4 additional nearby targets. This damage does not affect sleeping, lifted, or incapacitated enemies. This generates a high amount of threat."

The wording looks as though the dot portion of ion gas when talented got a damage increase? Its hard to decipher. "Ion Overload" refers to the dot I *think*, so if that's the case the duration nerf is understandable. Rail shot spreading ion gas is novel, but ion gas just doesn't do enough damage for this to be very exiting. The potential of an AoE slow in PvP is cool, but the way the talent trees are structured, picking up the slow is not practical without sacrificing damage or mitigation for a PvE build.

 

As I understood it the idea was for the dot to hit harder but duration is down, total damage kept about the same.

The initial info from PTS doesn't seem to support that though.

[Calsidian]

I think we'll be seeing far less Shield Techs in PvP now (not that there were many before). Fairly brutal change for us. Think I'll be using that field respec perk to just go Pyro in PvP from now on.

 

PvE my damage is certainly going to take a big hit, but at least they didn't nerf survivability at all. Maintaining aggro is going to be laughably easy now, though. Not sure how I feel about this really as I rather enjoyed the challenge of AoE tanking properly.

Edited June 7, 2012 by Calsidian

[Marb]

They are pushing tanks to a support role in pvp without sacrificing threat in pve. What they don't want is another Tankassins dominating wz's because you can't kill the buggers and they can do some serious damage too. It's not the end of the world, but you may want to switch to tank pvp gear to stay alive a little longer ;p.

 

The main reason shield techs are pvping in dps gear is that defence/shield mechanics in pvp are much less effective. The survivability gains are from the Ion gas cylinder stance itself and the passive damage reduction feats, not the gear.

 

I suppose I wasn't aware that powertechs and juggs were doing too much damage? I guess if that was the case then these changes are warranted, I would just like to hear the reasoning behind the tank damage nerfs from the devs in a little detail. They just keep talking about our threat buffs with no mention of damage nerfs.

[pure_laced]

The main reason shield techs are pvping in dps gear is that defence/shield mechanics in pvp are much less effective. The survivability gains are from the Ion gas cylinder stance itself and the passive damage reduction feats, not the gear.

 

I suppose I wasn't aware that powertechs and juggs were doing too much damage? I guess if that was the case then these changes are warranted, I would just like to hear the reasoning behind the tank damage nerfs from the devs in a little detail. They just keep talking about our threat buffs with no mention of damage nerfs.

 

Good tanks didn't have agro issues for the most part, but it was dicey. The best tanks were still at the verge of losing threat in a fight that required taunts because of tank switches etc until the taunt mechanics kicked in. Now they boosted the threat modifier from 60% to 100% they dumbed down the role, so they made up for it a little by reducing the damage of attacks (which also built threat)

 

Honestly, I didn't see an issue in PvP, except for Sins of course where the damage was OP even in DPS gear. If they made PVP right the 1st time for the tanks, hard to kill/wet noodle types that would have been fine. But since tank stats (def/shield/absorb) are meaningless in PvP there was no reason to where any of the tank gear.

[TheOpf]

I think we'll be seeing far less Shield Techs in PvP now (not that there were many before). Fairly brutal change for us. Think I'll be using that field respec perk to just go Pyro in PvP from now on.

 

PvE my damage is certainly going to take a big hit, but at least they didn't nerf survivability at all. Maintaining aggro is going to be laughably easy now, though. Not sure how I feel about this really as I rather enjoyed the challenge of AoE tanking properly.

 

I disagree, I think we will see more than normal. I pray this will get rid of the crap Ion Cell AP specs ;p. What they don't want is another tankassin running around dealing serious damage and being hard to kill. Even so, who really likes playing a tank in pvp? 75 percent of your population would rather play dps or heals for the big numbers.