Class balance in SWTOR 1.3

[Mdesade]

Hello SWTOR,

I'm looking for opinions on class balance in SWTOR for an article I'll be writing either this week or in the next couple weeks (depending on how much of a discussion gets rolling here).

 

So, discussion topic: How do the classes in SWTOR compare to each other in PvE and/or PvP?

 

In order to get some specific feedback, I'm going to list a few guided questions below. Don't feel like you need to answer all of these to contribute. I'm interested in getting a kind of community pulse for how people feel about class balance as well as some specifics.

 

Feel free to give as much detail as you like. If I end up using some of your feedback specifically, I'll make sure to: 1. Ask you for permission 2. credit you in my article, so don't worry...your name won't end up on the internet at large without your knowledge!

 

Guided questions:

 

Which specializations/classes could use some buffing?

Which specializations/classes are currently too powerful?

Are there any specific abilities that could use tweaking?

Is there a spec that lacks PvE- or PvP-centric abilities?

Do you have suggestions for improvement related to a specific talent tree or class?

 

Please be respectful to each other in your responses. There is nothing wrong with discussion and strong opinions, but there is no need to be mean with each other. Although I'm doing this for research, I would hope, if a great deal of valuable insight happens, good feedback will make its way to the developers.

 

Thank you.

[Mdesade]

Still interested in feedback. Will respond and collect good posts as I have time. For now, I must rest up for my day job.

 

Night SWTOR.

[Jurence]

Hi, I'm going to refrain from commenting too much about other classes because aside from sage/sorc (I have PvP geared 50's of both a Sage and a Sorc) I do not have 50's in other classes and would not say I'm qualified to do so. That being said, however, I believe that my opinions do hold some weight considering I have roughly 30 days /played between my two sage/sorc characters. Please note that in the following I am not saying that we as sages/sorcs suck, I'm not saying crying and saying we're under-powered, and I'm not saying we NEED a buff in order to be viable. Between my two sage/sorc characters I have enjoyed over 10,000 player kills, roughly 5000 MVP votes in warzones, and hundreds of thousands of valor points. I know this class well, and I know it well enough to know that we aren't in a position to cry, quit, and re-roll. But we are in a position to petition for change in a calm, cool and collected manner.

 

I have played every spec with at least some success.

My comments in brief on each of our specs is as follows:

 

Healing: Turret healing is incredibly difficult when we are constantly being stunned, knocked back, and interrupted. Healing mobility is incredibly limited; our HOT spell cannot heal back half of the damage that can be done to the caster in a 1v1 situation considering a 1.5s GCD. A frequent, but not thorough or meticulously tracked, analysis of healers in warzones has repeatedly found the Healing/Damage taken ratio to be significantly lower for sage/sorc healers than other healers, notably operative healers. I should not need to have a guard an entire match to be a viable healer. I should not have to spec half way into lightning for defensive abilities to be a viable healer. I should not have to kite a player for minutes at a time with limited instant CC (of which many of our opponents do have) and a very gimped HOT spell.

 

While on that note, I think something needs to be said on operative healers. I have never thought operative healers were overpowered, however with the way devs have reacted to feedback in the past I believe it is more likely that we see an operative nerf, rather than a sorc/sage healing buff. Adjusting WZ expertise to be applied to healers will not fix this disparity. Nerfing operatives is not a fair solution. Sorcs/sages fundamentally need a change to their healing tree and/or their abilities. Force efficiency isn't going to do it. We can have all of the force in the galaxy, but so long as we are stationary healing turrets, we are a target. Why can't recklessness affect all spells and be available for a diminished cooldown with healing talent procs? This would give sages the much needed ability to be far removed from the fight without changing the mechanics of healing too much. Guaranteed heal crits don't seem to be too overpowered to me considering the talent trees of the flavor-of-the-month's primary spec.

 

Lightning: I enjoy lightning, I really do. I like big numbers, and I like feeling like I can actually kill someone quickly. But why in the hell can my force-lightning crit for 1k a tick on an opponent (3s channeled, 1k per second) and a lightning strike crit for 600 damage (1.5 second cast, stationary). Lightning lacks mobility. I have personally found all of the defensive talents found in lightning to bring us to only respectable terms with the survavibility of madness DPS. That being said, if I am heal spec I always go lightning for the defensive talents. My suggestion? Keep it simple -- let us be able to move while we cast any lightning spells. Make it a talent, or something.

 

Madness: I am currently a full-madness spec sorc and have been for the majority of the time since patch 1.2 has been dropped. I like the numbers we put out, and I like the way they go out (mixed single target and AOE). I believe that once expertise is tweaked in the future madness sorcs will realize greater survivability than they currently enjoy. I have no qualms with the abilities or talents of this tree. I'd like to see a talent which makes it more difficult for our dots to be purged.

 

"Pre 1.2 I was one of the sorcs pushing out 700k+ (record 1 million) dps regularly in warzones. This was overpowered - I knew it was and had no problem accepting it as fact. As a class, we are supposed to be glass cannons. In 1.2 they took away our cannon, but kept the glass."

 

On force efficiency: Seemingly every viable pve or pvp spec calls for 5 points in lightning for added force efficiency. Sustained healing, or DPS is simply not their without these talent specs. Still, I constantly find myself relying on consumption and self-healing through madness talent abilities in order to maintain force levels to push out DPS. I think something should be said on a requirement for a class and "something-useful" for a class. Added willpower in madness is a "something-useful", added crit in healing is "something-useful", however the benefits gained from increased force efficiency are so great that it would be ludicrous to not take the abilities. Many creative specs and talent-arrangements could be realized were we not required to spend 5 talent points in lightning to have a viable spec.

 

I have many other ideas for ways in which I think the sorc/sage advanced class could be tweaked to enhance competitive ability while still promoting a culture of fairness within SWTOR PvP, however I am growing tired of typing this and look forward to feedback. I will try to respond to most of the rational and cool-headed responses I see.

 

Highest regards,

Twinkowns'face of Jung Ma

Edited July 3, 2012 by Jurence

[Underpowered]

Hi Elizabet. I think you know who I am

 

Note: All arguments apply to the Imperial class equivalent.

 

Which specializations/classes could use some buffing?

Gunnery-spec DPS Commandos could use a slight utility buff or quality-of-life buff. Compared to Gunslingers, their DPS is comparable, their utility is comparable, but Gunslingers have the incredibly useful Cover mechanic, which blocks any interrupt attempts or gap-closer attempts and even knockback attempts at the right angles - unless the opponent commits their 30m CC first, which is a very significant expenditure. I do not have any specific recommendations on how to buff Gunnery Commandos, however.

 

31pt Healing Sages could also use a slight defensive/survivability buff for PvP. As it stands many healing Sages are respeccing to hybrid Seer/Telekinetics for root on knockback and AoE blinds on Force Armor break, simply for a sorely-needed survivability buff (and extra utility). They can afford to do this because the 31pt Seer talent, the AoE heal, is too cumbersome and too easily interruptible to be of practical use in high-level PvP, and as I alluded to before, the extra defenses from the Telekinetics tree outweigh any benefits gained from going 31 points deep into Seer.

 

Balance-spec Sages run into Force management issues in extended fights when using a competitive DPS rotation - this is especially apparent in endgame raid boss fights. Other classes/specs can run their optimal DPS rotation and have equal or better DPS than a Balance Sage and never run into permanent resource issues. As such, Balance Sages could use a slight buff to Force recovery options (elaborated in skill changes question below.)

 

Telekinetic Sages are also extremely difficult to play effectively in PvP and/or are otherwise too easy to counter. (Sounds awfully familiar to Gunnery Commandos!). However this tree cannot be given too many usability buffs or otherwise the Balance tree will become inferior to Telekinetics, as Telekinetics already provides superior burst damage, better AoE damage, infinite resource management, and stronger defenses. In fact, the Telekinetic tree would likely become overpowered in this state. As such if the Telekinetic spec gets usability buffs, at least one of the strengths mentioned above should be toned down to compensate, and/or the Balance spec should be buffed to remain competitive with Telekinetics.

 

Which specializations/classes are currently too powerful?

Sentinel DPS and their overall effectiveness in PvP are in a good place; however, their entire repertoire of defensive cooldowns is too generous and is simply overkill. Specific recommendations to follow in the next question.

 

Assault Spec Vanguards have extremely high burst and sustained DPS and have no significant weaknesses or limitations to counter their DPS. The results one can attain with this class is disproportionately high to the relative lack of effort required to achieve said results, unlike, say, Sentinels or Sages which require more micromanagement of skills and cooldowns for maximum effectiveness in PvP (read: higher skill cap.) The truth is, there is only ONE thing an Assault Vanguard has to worry about, and that is whether or not their target is on fire.

 

Another issue is their permanent snare - the snare on Plasma Cell is generally reapplied through Ion Pulse once every 2-3 GCDs in their optimal rotation which means a permanent snare with no loss of practical DPS. All other DPS classes that want to snare or slow their targets do so with a loss of DPS for at least during that one GCD because they are not doing their optimal DPS rotation. The only possible counter to this permanent snare is having a Commando or Scoundrel healer baby you with cleanses when it's off cooldown, which is only a pipe dream and is utterly impractical in competitive PvP - and remember, even if the Plasma Cell dot gets cleansed, all the Vanguard has to do is reapply the dot through Ion Pulse again in the next GCD.

 

This effectively makes escaping an Assault Vanguard nearly impossible unless the defender blows CCs or other expensive, long-cooldown escape methods, provided that they are even available. Even if these measures are used, a Vanguard still has two CCs and a Harpoon to prevent escape or to close the gap; if these measures are off CD, then the Vanguard still has useful DPS outside of 10m which includes Incendiary Round, Assault Plastique, High Impact Bolt, Full Auto, and Hammer Shots. (As such, the "DPS Vanguards have no DPS outside of 10m" argument is largely invalid in practice.) Barring all of this, even if the Vanguard "loses" his primary target, given the nature of objective points in Warzones and how battles tend to be highly clustered around these objectives, it is trivial for said Vanguard to turn around and find another target within 10m, and resume full DPS.

 

Also, Recharge Cells allows an Assault Vanguard to exceed any reasonable measure of balanced DPS "for free" once every two minutes, allowing them to ensure a kill, which could make all the difference in the outcome of a Warzone.

 

Are there any specific abilities that could use tweaking?

Guarded By The Force should be balanced by providing a 99% healing reduction (in addition to the 99% damage reduction currently in place) during its duration. There is no particular reason why Sentinels should be allowed to give themselves near immunity when near death and be able to be healed to full health by a friendly healer at the same time, at no risk or ability to be countered by the enemy in PvP. I challenge the devs to justify this potential occurrence. The only scenario I can possibly think of where this is acceptable is in endgame raiding, but remember that Sentinels can be healed during Force Camo, which is already a very good escape/panic button. There's no need to give Sentinels two extremely good trick defensive cooldowns.

 

As for Assault Vanguards, tying Plasma Cell to Ion Pulse 100% of the time is too much of a quality-of-life boost, increases their effective damage potential too high, and lowers the skill cap for said players too much. Every class has to make an active choice whether to snare or to continue their optimal DPS rotation - Assault Vanguards do not. There are a variety of tweaks I would like to suggest ranging from light to heavy-handed, but those involve reworking ability trees, which are addressed in the final question.

 

Is there a spec that lacks PvE- or PvP-centric abilities?

As mentioned before, Gunnery Commandos could use some quality-of-life changes in PvP; this could be through the addition of PvP-centric abilities.

 

Otherwise I do not feel that classes need new abilities for PvE/PvP - balance changes can be addressed through other means.

 

Do you have suggestions for improvement related to a specific talent tree or class?

ASSAULT VANGUARDS:

 

"Light-handed" tweak:

• The High Friction Bolts skill no longer refreshes the duration on Plasma Cell if present.
  

 

"Moderately-handed" tweak:

• High Friction Bolts no longer refresh the duration on Plasma Cell if present.
  
• The Ionized Ignition skill effect can no longer occur more than once every 6 seconds.
  

 

"Heavy-handed" tweak:

• The High Friction Bolts skill no longer refreshes the duration on Plasma Cell if present.
  
• The Ionized Ignition skill effect now applies to Incendiary Round and no longer applies to Ion Pulse.
  
• Incendiary Round now has a 3 second cooldown.
  
• Rain of Fire now also affects Ion Pulse.
  

 

BALANCE SAGES:

• Focused Insight now also restores 1% of total Force.
  

 

I wish I could suggest more specific changes for other classes but I do not consider myself knowledgeable enough to do so. Good luck on your article.

Edited July 3, 2012 by Underpowered

[Mdesade]

Thank you very much. This is definitely helpful for getting a better idea of the perspectives of other classes. As I have only seriously played various specs of assassin, I greatly appreciate the depth of feedback here.

 

Keep the thoughts coming, though. I'm interested in as much feedback as I can possibly get from as many people as possible.

[Mdesade]

While I'm thinking about it, does anyone have some general comments regarding the state of class balance? Are the balance issues significant enough to make any class not very fun to play or are they things you can live with for the time being?

[HKtheindomitable]

Opinion: I'm not happy with class balance in 1.3. I wasn't happy with it in 1.2. It was better in the beginning. I'm mostly speaking of PvP. And no, it's not me. I did just fine before 1.3 and better before 1.2.

 

Example: One instance in hutt ball (which I really really don't like playing) it took 3 troopers and 2 shadows to kill one assassin who's group was on the other side of the map. What does that say? I have seen 2 players in full War Hero gear have a hard time defeating one assassin. Sages heal so terribly. Inquisitors and Agents heal like it's nothing. I'm surprised there hasn't been as much complaining about that as other things.

 

Recollection: I remember being on Hedarr Soongh and being a part of the #1 Republic PvP servers. The only time we got a little worried was when fighting Blood Pact. Even without PvP or Rakata gear and terrible AC point usage I was able to hold my own. Now I do good if I defeat a Bounty Hunter in a 1v1 fight with proper AC point usage and half BM gear set.

 

Pleading Statement: Please weaken the healing of the Agents and Inquisitors and/or make Trooper and more importantly Sages more effective in PvP.

 

Suggestion: Perhaps having the ability to have two AC specs and two Action Bar types. One for PvE and one for PvP. The PvP one only works in WZ or when attacking another player. This way you won't have to balance for both with the one AC. Your restrictions on how you balance things will be more flexible because you don't have to take into account PvP when balancing the PvE abilities and vice verse.

[HKtheindomitable]

ASSAULT VANGUARDS:

 

"Light-handed" tweak:

• The High Friction Bolts skill no longer refreshes the duration on Plasma Cell if present.
  

 

"Moderately-handed" tweak:

• High Friction Bolts no longer refresh the duration on Plasma Cell if present.
  
• The Ionized Ignition skill effect can no longer occur more than once every 6 seconds.
  

 

"Heavy-handed" tweak:

• The High Friction Bolts skill no longer refreshes the duration on Plasma Cell if present.
  
• The Ionized Ignition skill effect now applies to Incendiary Round and no longer applies to Ion Pulse.
  
• Incendiary Round now has a 3 second cooldown.
  
• Rain of Fire now also affects Ion Pulse.
  

 

Statement: In response to your "tweaks", allow me to make some clarifications.

 

*High Impact Bolt* refreshing the duration of Plasma cell doesn't do as much as the actual damage the ability causes because the duration isn't that long.

I don't know about the Ionized Ignition thing so i won't comment on it.

Incendiary Round already has a 3 second cooldown.

 

Confused Query: *Mortar Volley* affects Ion Pulse. What? I don't understand.

 

Statement: As a Vanguard I can rightully say that out abilities are not that powerful. Mostly in High level PvP. I've been able to do a bunch of damage, but not defeat someone, many times. If you're an Assassin or (whatever the other Inquisitor AC is called) then yes, you will be hit harder because you have LIGHT ARMOR The only time I have too easy of a time is when going up against new level 50s. If you're not a Light Armor player, with high end gear, then it's not the abilities. I've got my ability que set up to do the most damage as quickly as possible. And it's effective. That's what every player needs to do. They need to have their abilities lined up so that it's effective. If it's not effective, then you've got the wrong ability lineup.

 

Statement: It actually took 5 republic players to kill ONE (1) Assassin in a wz and at least two had War Hero gear for sure.

[chritie]

Nice thread. Can't wait for the article . Edited July 4, 2012 by chritie

[WinterWraith]

Incendiary Round already has a 3 second cooldown.

 

Confused Query: *Mortar Volley* affects Ion Pulse. What? I don't understand.

 

Incendiary Round has no cooldown and "Rain of Fire" is the skill in Assault Specialist that grants several abilities 9% additional damage to burning targets. It has nothing to do with Mortar Volley.

[HKtheindomitable]

Incendiary Round has no cooldown and "Rain of Fire" is the skill in Assault Specialist that grants several abilities 9% additional damage to burning targets. It has nothing to do with Mortar Volley.

 

Retraction: Oh yeah. I don't know why I thought it does have a cool down. I've been playing my alts too long I guess. I also confused Rain of Fire with Death From Above. They sound like they do the same. I don't memorize the names of the AC passive abilities.

 

Agreement: I agree with the cooldown from the standpoint that I use the ability when I don't want to. But other than that....

[WinterWraith]

Well given how expensive it is I don't think a 3 second cooldown would change much. I wouldn't use it that rapidly without recharge cells or reserve powercell.

[ScrubinMuhTub]

I have read a forum post recently in which a player [Forum Tag: Kovux] described a sort of 'log' that they had built. The idea behind it was that they would play many rated warzones, within their guild, across two servers, and over whatever their sample size was, establish how each class performed based on numbers. While the results were very subjective, what I found to be very interesting was class representation.

 

Out of all of the matches that were played, recording only classes that appeared to be focusing on DPS, there were (rough numbers) nearly 400 powertech/vanguards, over 400 marauder/sentinels, ~80 assassin/shadows, ~50 sorc/sages, ~40 juggernaut/guardians, ~20 snipers/gunslingers, ~20 operative/scoundrel, and ~20 mercenary/commando players. Please keep in mind that these are the player representations for this person that appeared to be DPS roles within the warzone.

 

Outside of my opinions on class specifics, I have my own questions to ask: What mechanics drive there to be a 20:1 ratio in representation from one class to another? Why are there 10 times as many powertech DPS as there are juggernaut DPS in rated warzones? Why do the number of marauder/sentinels seen nearly double the combined weight of all snipe/guns, jugg/guard, op/scound, merc/comm, asn/shad, sorc/sage combined? Keep in mind the parameters of the observations Kovux produced. It was just his guild, just across two servers, open to interpretation, and has plenty of room for human error. It isn't concrete evidence, and there is alot of room for players to outright disregard it.

 

But let's be on the level here. Something can't be right if two classes represent such a staggering portion of the DPS role in rated PvP.

 

 

Edit: Adding this fun little read. If you want to read the rest of the arguement as it comes apart, the link in the upper right hand corner will take you to the thread.

Edited July 5, 2012 by ScrubinMuhTub

[Underpowered]

Statement: In response to your "tweaks", allow me to make some clarifications.

 

*High Impact Bolt* refreshing the duration of Plasma cell doesn't do as much as the actual damage the ability causes because the duration isn't that long.

The purpose behind the first tweak is not to reduce DPS. It is to reduce the chance of having the Plasma Cell debuff PERMANENTLY on the target. In fact since the Vanguard rotation has Ion Pulse used every 2-3 GCDs which refreshes Plasma Cell anyway, this change by itself probably won't do anything to reduce VG effectiveness. Hence "light" tweak.

 

I don't know about the Ionized Ignition thing so i won't comment on it.

Incendiary Round already has a 3 second cooldown.

 

The Ionized Ignition skill gives 33/66/100% chance of trigger Plasma Cell on the target when you use Ion Pulse. This is one of the most key skills for Assault VGs. Its what enables VGs to perma slow their targets and insure 100% uptime on their dot, which can crit tick for 1000 damage, which is insane.

 

As the other poster mentioned, IR currently has no CD.

 

The reason why I made these two changes is so that now, if a VG wants to slow their target, they have to use a noncheap ability to do so (IR), and they have to sacrifice some DPS in order to keep up the slow. I added a 3sec CD so that VGs cant spam IR on an entire team and slow the whole team down. So now the VG has to make a skilled choice between full DPS or maintaining slow.

 

Confused Query: *Mortar Volley* affects Ion Pulse. What? I don't understand.

 

Rain of Fire is a upper tier skill in the Assault Spec skill tree.

 

Statement: As a Vanguard I can rightully say that out abilities are not that powerful. Mostly in High level PvP. I've been able to do a bunch of damage, but not defeat someone, many times. If you're an Assassin or (whatever the other Inquisitor AC is called) then yes, you will be hit harder because you have LIGHT ARMOR The only time I have too easy of a time is when going up against new level 50s. If you're not a Light Armor player, with high end gear, then it's not the abilities. I've got my ability que set up to do the most damage as quickly as possible. And it's effective. That's what every player needs to do. They need to have their abilities lined up so that it's effective. If it's not effective, then you've got the wrong ability lineup.

Statement: It actually took 5 republic players to kill ONE (1) Assassin in a wz and at least two had War Hero gear for sure.

 

The difference of Vanguard DPS between a Light Armor or Heavy Armor is not that large because you have like 90% armor pen on rail shot. So if a Sage has like 1000 armor, his armor becomes 100 for rail shot, if a Guardian has 3000 armor his armor becomes 300 against rail shot. 200 armor difference is nothing. Also Ion Pulse is elemental damage which is not affected by armor rating.

 

It's not the power of VG attacks alone that makes them overpowered, its the fact that they have really high DPS combined with very little downtime between targets because they have full DPS at 10m unlike true melee DPS, permanent snare, and a low skill cap so even mediocre players can do more damage than extremely skilled players playing other DPS classes. Their DPS rotation is so simple and it solves all your problems for you - damage, setup, snare to keep your target in range, self-sustaining ammo management.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Underpowered

[Marak]

DPS operatives/scoundrels (both specs) are grossly underwhelming in PvE right now. If all DPS are supposed to be "within 5% of each other" than Bioware's math skills need some serious work as concealment/lethality both are dragging behind annihlation Maras (used as the extreme high end for benchmark) by a good 30-45% in equal gear and are a good 15-20% behind the average curve.

 

Their rotations are clunky and resource starved with unyieldy cooldowns (3 second cast orbital strike for a melee is just not how things should be going down).

 

Their lack of a gap closer is supposedly offset by their mid-range abilities, and this would be true for Lethality/Dirty Fighting if Cull didn't require TA (which can only be generated by a 4m ability). Concealment/Scrapper especially should be given something because their uptime really hurts if they aren't in melee.

 

In short, the class has nothing going for it right now other than battle rez utility, which is of course offset by 2 other classes who do their job way better.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Marak

[Canis_Anubis]

Hello SWTOR,

Guided questions:

Which specializations/classes could use some buffing?

Which specializations/classes are currently too powerful?

Are there any specific abilities that could use tweaking?

Is there a spec that lacks PvE- or PvP-centric abilities?

Do you have suggestions for improvement related to a specific talent tree or class?

 

Non-healing Operatives desperately need help up off the floor. Over-complicated resource model, routine melee-hostile battles and harsh positional requirements in their rotation pretty much guarantee mediocrity in any progression fight.

[Mdesade]

But let's be on the level here. Something can't be right if two classes represent such a staggering portion of the DPS role in rated PvP.

 

I would agree with that. Some people in that threat also made the point that not all damage is created equal - so, while the damage numbers may be close, the amount of time it takes to do that damage is a significant factor.

 

I may have to start taking screenshots in regular warzones to see if the same population disparity plays out in less competitive play. I'd expect numbers to be skewed a bit due to perspectives on which classes are powerful, but that sample puts the balance way beyond what I could legitimately call a percpetion issues.

[ScrubinMuhTub]

These are some of my random opinions on classes, class talents, and class abilities.

 

Guardian/Juggernaut:

TALENT - Freezing Force/Chilling Scream Force cost reduction. This causes the AoE snare (which is quite effective) to be completely cost free and spammable. The only limiting factor that remains here is the global cooldown. I can't count how many times I've seen Guardians and Juggernauts spam Freezing Force/Chilling Scream in Voidstar hallways, completely ignoring 5 second cooldown cleanses, 1-2minute active class CD's used to escape snares/roots. These players are able to shut down entire teams while their team moves on to the next objective without issue.

 

TALENT - Unremitting/Unstoppable 2/2 Force Leap has a 100% chance to grant immunity to all controlling affects and reduce all damage taken by 20%. First of all, the talent is far too over budget in comparison to far too many talents. My opinion is that it should perform one of either tasks. It should either reduce damage taken OR provide immunity to controlling affects, NOT both. As well, it should be moved further up into the Vigilance/Vengeance tree, thus becoming an Iconic specialization ability, instead of a common hybrid pickup, which is the staple of every hybrid Guard/Jugg in PvP.

 

ABILITY - LEAP - PUSH - LEAP - Force Push resetting the cooldown on Force Leap seems completely unjustified. It promotes less thought, not greater thought, in when to use an excellent crowd control skill (Force Push). It stacks up two roots in quick succession, locking down a target that may be interested in mobility for around 5 seconds, only two of which may be actual 'stun effect', but do infact remove control from the player. On the victim side of the event, it drives frustration up, and is particularly *unfun* to be rooted and cc'd for such a long duration, given the following things are also true: Players who possess the Unstoppable/Unremitting talent have a directly controllable method of giving themselves 8 full seconds of immunity to all crowd controls, on top of 8 full seconds of 20% damage reduction, on top of rooting their target for 3 seconds, on top of generating 6 rage/focus, on top of dealing xxxx damage, on top of moving the target where they wish, on top of a 2 second stun. All of this for two talent points and three button presses, on short cooldowns. *Force Push should not reset the cooldown on Force Leap. This would cause players to think before they push, and increase skill cap slightly.

 

*I nearly forgot to mention the "Leap to target, push into endzone while immune to cc, leap to target for score." Huttball is my favorite WZ, and I'm rarely, if ever, in a position to cause this to happen, but once it starts, you can't stop it, all because Push resets the CD on Leap and this is a good reason why?

 

Not so much a criticism, but more an observation: As a Scrapper, I was often accused of being a stunlock king. I find it amusing that Guardians/Juggernauts have more stuns at their disposal, have shorter/no cooldown on roots/snares in their repetiore, and can create longer stunlock chains than even scoundrel/operatives can. Imagine teams of Guardians/Juggernauts stunlocking people to death until they unsub? *chuckle*

Edited July 8, 2012 by ScrubinMuhTub

[Mdesade]

Thanks again for the time you guys have put into these posts. Just wanted to give an update. I'm still working on collecting feedback and have been PMing some people that have posted in other threads to get as many responses as I can.

 

I haven't been able to post a ton due to being busy out in the real world...and I've also decided to give it one or two more weeks just to give people some time to post here and respond to my PMs. If you know anyone with some strong opinions on the topic, feel free to direct them here as well.

[MasterPetricco]

These are some of my random opinions on classes, class talents, and class abilities.

 

Guardian/Juggernaut:

TALENT - Freezing Force/Chilling Scream Force cost reduction. This causes the AoE snare (which is quite effective) to be completely cost free and spammable. The only limiting factor that remains here is the global cooldown. I can't count how many times I've seen Guardians and Juggernauts spam Freezing Force/Chilling Scream in Voidstar hallways, completely ignoring 5 second cooldown cleanses, 1-2minute active class CD's used to escape snares/roots. These players are able to shut down entire teams while their team moves on to the next objective without issue.

 

TALENT - Unremitting/Unstoppable 2/2 Force Leap has a 100% chance to grant immunity to all controlling affects and reduce all damage taken by 20%. First of all, the talent is far too over budget in comparison to far too many talents. My opinion is that it should perform one of either tasks. It should either reduce damage taken OR provide immunity to controlling affects, NOT both. As well, it should be moved further up into the Vigilance/Vengeance tree, thus becoming an Iconic specialization ability, instead of a common hybrid pickup, which is the staple of every hybrid Guard/Jugg in PvP.

 

ABILITY - LEAP - PUSH - LEAP - Force Push resetting the cooldown on Force Leap seems completely unjustified. It promotes less thought, not greater thought, in when to use an excellent crowd control skill (Force Push). It stacks up two roots in quick succession, locking down a target that may be interested in mobility for around 5 seconds, only two of which may be actual 'stun effect', but do infact remove control from the player. On the victim side of the event, it drives frustration up, and is particularly *unfun* to be rooted and cc'd for such a long duration, given the following things are also true: Players who possess the Unstoppable/Unremitting talent have a directly controllable method of giving themselves 8 full seconds of immunity to all crowd controls, on top of 8 full seconds of 20% damage reduction, on top of rooting their target for 3 seconds, on top of generating 6 rage/focus, on top of dealing xxxx damage, on top of moving the target where they wish, on top of a 2 second stun. All of this for two talent points and three button presses, on short cooldowns. *Force Push should not reset the cooldown on Force Leap. This would cause players to think before they push, and increase skill cap slightly.

 

*I nearly forgot to mention the "Leap to target, push into endzone while immune to cc, leap to target for score." Huttball is my favorite WZ, and I'm rarely, if ever, in a position to cause this to happen, but once it starts, you can't stop it, all because Push resets the CD on Leap and this is a good reason why?

 

Not so much a criticism, but more an observation: As a Scrapper, I was often accused of being a stunlock king. I find it amusing that Guardians/Juggernauts have more stuns at their disposal, have shorter/no cooldown on roots/snares in their repetiore, and can create longer stunlock chains than even scoundrel/operatives can. Imagine teams of Guardians/Juggernauts stunlocking people to death until they unsub? *chuckle*

 

If you take any of the things you mentioned away from a Guards/Juggers you've effectively killed them in PvP.

 

They will now have zero counters against ranged classes, their gap closer becomes a liability, if I charge a sniper, merc or inquisitor I will be instantly knocked back, and in games like hutt ball, since you brought it up, have to run the long way around to get back to them while they DPS us down and we have to sit and take it. They need those brief seconds of high defence/CC immunity to unload some burst, we aren't burst monsters like PTs and Maras.

 

The force push reset of force leap was also something Bioware added because of how much Guards/Juggers were suffering with mobility, and not just in PvP but PvE as well. With only 1 ranged attack, saber throw, which is on a fairly long cool down, tanks had no way of gathering up ranged mobs or getting to them quickly enough, both Shadows and Vanguards have ranged powers, Guardians have 1.

 

Without being able to leap without worries, Guards/Juggers would be kited and killed by every class with some kind of range, and that's all of them except their AC counter parts Maras/Sents. Infact the leap root effect is there to use master strike, because any other time people will simply walk out of its range before the third and strongest hit strikes. As for their AOE slow effect, again something needed to avoid being kited, if you can simply run away from us there's nothing we can do, our only ranged power has a min range as well, if you stay close enough we can't leap but far enough away we can't attack then a Guardian is just chasing you never hurting you.

 

And Force Push without resetting leap was a useless move in PvP, except for tactical plays like knocking the ball carrier back, it sent you flying out of our range and left us with no way to follow up. What good is a knock back to a melee class if they can't attack you after it?

[SalBasss]

Sages heal so terribly. Inquisitors and Agents heal like it's nothing.

 

...

 

Pleading Statement: Please weaken the healing of the Agents and Inquisitors and/or make Trooper and more importantly Sages more effective in PvP.

 

Well these two lines just invalidated everything else you said. Sages and Inquisitors (read: Sorcerers) are the same thing, different palette.

[Knockerz]

I have read a forum post recently in which a player [Forum Tag: Kovux] described a sort of 'log' that they had built. The idea behind it was that they would play many rated warzones, within their guild, across two servers, and over whatever their sample size was, establish how each class performed based on numbers. While the results were very subjective, what I found to be very interesting was class representation.

 

Out of all of the matches that were played, recording only classes that appeared to be focusing on DPS, there were (rough numbers) nearly 400 powertech/vanguards, over 400 marauder/sentinels, ~80 assassin/shadows, ~50 sorc/sages, ~40 juggernaut/guardians, ~20 snipers/gunslingers, ~20 operative/scoundrel, and ~20 mercenary/commando players. Please keep in mind that these are the player representations for this person that appeared to be DPS roles within the warzone.

 

Outside of my opinions on class specifics, I have my own questions to ask: What mechanics drive there to be a 20:1 ratio in representation from one class to another? Why are there 10 times as many powertech DPS as there are juggernaut DPS in rated warzones? Why do the number of marauder/sentinels seen nearly double the combined weight of all snipe/guns, jugg/guard, op/scound, merc/comm, asn/shad, sorc/sage combined? Keep in mind the parameters of the observations Kovux produced. It was just his guild, just across two servers, open to interpretation, and has plenty of room for human error. It isn't concrete evidence, and there is alot of room for players to outright disregard it.

 

But let's be on the level here. Something can't be right if two classes represent such a staggering portion of the DPS role in rated PvP.

 

 

Edit: Adding this fun little read. If you want to read the rest of the arguement as it comes apart, the link in the upper right hand corner will take you to the thread.

 

I can answer some of your question. I recently start leveling a powertech bh. A powertech is more useful in terms of being able to pull a healer or dps that is in the back. It's pretty effective and in huttball you can pull people into the fire pits to kill them instantly. You can also pull people down off the top platforms. As a jk you really only have mobility. Powertechs do more damage too over a jk guardian. It's just easier to pull your target towards you than jump in the middle of many opponents.

 

As for jk the guardains/jug version aren't as good for damage compared to a sentinel/mara. A jug/gaurdian will also have less defensive cd than a sentinel or mara class in both pvp and pve. Thus, the class is really only good at being a tank and is outclassed in dps and pvp compared to a mara/sentinel. I myself have abandon my guardian in favor of my currently leveling sentinel.

 

The problem is that BW stated guardians were supposed to be more defensive at cost of damage, but sentinels have more defensive cd and do a lot more damage. Thus, there is little point other than the animation/cosmetic gear or wanting to play a tank for picking a guardian over a sentinel. If you plan to play a dps spec only, then the only choice is a sentinel.

 

This trend with guardians vs sentinel doesn't really surprise me. In wow paladins were given the same treatment and you rarely saw a dps paladin prior to Blizzard abandoning their philosophy that due to that class having a tank and/or healing tree the dps tree should be weaker to other pure dps classes. This only promotes classes into their defacto roll, bc paladins were mostly healers and some times tanks. Personally, I don't think that design works very well in that it doesn't promote variety of specs/classes for raids or pvp. Instead people are pigeon hole into a specific roll for the sake of optimization. The only way to fix this is to allow all dps specs to be nearly equal and not punish a class/spec because they have a tank or healing spec.

 

The way I see my guardians as being punished for having a tank spec while sentinels will never be ask to tank. Dps sentinels and guardians should do nearly the same dps since there is no shortage of dps players in any mmorpg. Pure dps classes/specs have no right to complain about having to compete against classes/specs that can heal or tank, but choose to dps due to fact that pure dps class/specs will never be ask to tank or heal. However, tanks or healers should be reward over dps specs due the lack of those roles in mmorpg.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Knockerz