tatatan Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Hi guys, just wanted to say one thing. If you would like to be DPS operative, planning on taking part of rated warzones, or hardmode operations, i can't recommend it. Today the only accepted tree from Operative to rated warzones or hardmode operations is medic. atm it is very simple Operative = heal Sniper = DPS Ofc, you can go the DPS tree route in operative, but you'll only be able to queue PUG wzs (and be facerolled anyway, unless you are War Hero dressed - and be rolled anyway) and queue via Flashpoint finder - and experience, that ppl simply will leave/kick you when see you in grp., which actually happend to me, even though i have 20.7k hp and good (not best) gear. After half year playing DPS Operative, it tastes sour, just bitter pill to swallow and i stopped to see the 'light at the end of tunnel', because BW doesn't care. Starting operative with DPS road in mind, is a gamble on BW fixing it in future. just my 2c .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grifften Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Hi guys, just wanted to say one thing. If you would like to be DPS operative, planning on taking part of rated warzones, or hardmode operations, i can't recommend it. Today the only accepted tree from Operative to rated warzones or hardmode operations is medic. atm it is very simple Operative = heal Sniper = DPS Ofc, you can go the DPS tree route in operative, but you'll only be able to queue PUG wzs (and be facerolled anyway, unless you are War Hero dressed - and be rolled anyway) and queue via Flashpoint finder - and experience, that ppl simply will leave/kick you when see you in grp., which actually happend to me, even though i have 20.7k hp and good (not best) gear. After half year playing DPS Operative, it tastes sour, just bitter pill to swallow and i stopped to see the 'light at the end of tunnel', because BW doesn't care. Starting operative with DPS road in mind, is a gamble on BW fixing it in future. just my 2c .. That's really a shame, I just made an Operative because I love stealth and quicker moving stabbing gameplay, but he just seemed so much less effective than my Assassin who so far seems much more capable as a DPS Stealth class. I don't mind healing, and would like having the option, but I really want to play the Operative as a competitive melee character for PvE(with some PvP here and there). It's very disappointing that I'll have to reroll him as a Sniper to DPS. Part of me wants to keep him around and hope his Melee DPS spec gets buffed, but another part of me thinks that's wasting a character slot and I should just go Sniper and cut my losses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuixupu Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 When it comes to competitive melee dps, Operatives aren't really behind Assassins....they are significantly behind Marauders and Powertechs now, though. It seems it's very hard to balance stealth classes properly. It took Blizzard forever to finally get feral druids and rogues to be useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grifften Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 When it comes to competitive melee dps, Operatives aren't really behind Assassins....they are significantly behind Marauders and Powertechs now, though. It seems it's very hard to balance stealth classes properly. It took Blizzard forever to finally get feral druids and rogues to be useful. I played a Rogue in WoW since Vanilla and while we did rubberband around alot I never felt severely gimped or severely overpowered in PvE. PvP sure, sometimes we were gods and sometimes we couldn't do anything, but for the most part the class felt like you could be competitive if you had skill. I would love to have a class like that in SWTOR, I have a Sith Assassin for stealth Rogue-like abilities and I have a Sentinel for dual wielding, but for some reason the stealth and knifing from the Op seems more at home, it's just a shame I won't be able to be helpful in PvE as melee. Now to decide if I should stick with the Sentinel or the Assassin for my melee fix, the Op will become a Sniper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuixupu Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 I played a Rogue in WoW since Vanilla and while we did rubberband around alot I never felt severely gimped or severely overpowered in PvE. PvP sure, sometimes we were gods and sometimes we couldn't do anything, but for the most part the class felt like you could be competitive if you had skill. There were definitely limitations to being a rogue in Vanilla and BC. For one thing, you had no real AOE. I can't tell you how many times I was refused into a dungeon like Magisters Terrace because I was not "an aoe class". I was also turned down or kicked from groups because some dungeons were harder with too much melee (Arcatraz or whatever it was called). In end game raids, they were fine for tank and spank type bosses, to varying degrees depending on the expansion. But utility wise, they were worthless in the first two expansions, so even if your damage was good, you could be turned down based on having nothing else to contribute. Feral druids were a different story. If you rolled a feral druid dps prior to WOTLK, you were laughed at and told to go heals. Funny enough, there have been a few times since then when kitties became SUPER OP in both PVP and PVE. Anyway, maybe some day Operatives will have their day in the sun like Feral kitties and not be told to go heals, and there are people here on this forum that will tell you they can in fact be competitive dps if you know what you're doing, but if you want to make life easier, Sniper is the way to go. I was like you and really wanted to play another rogue-like melee class because that's what I always have done, but it turned out I actually really like the Sniper playstyle better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grifften Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Anyway, maybe some day Operatives will have their day in the sun like Feral kitties and not be told to go heals, and there are people here on this forum that will tell you they can in fact be competitive dps if you know what you're doing, but if you want to make life easier, Sniper is the way to go. I was like you and really wanted to play another rogue-like melee class because that's what I always have done, but it turned out I actually really like the Sniper playstyle better. Thanks, an endorsement coming from a long-time Rogue player means alot, I'll stick with my Sniper and see how he goes. Traditionally I haven't been a big fan of ranged classes, but I'll broaden my horizons and see how things go while secretly hoping they buff Operatives down the road(and give me another character slot to make one). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuixupu Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 I have my operative fully Rakata geared and specced heals I do like healing, but we don't have a permanent spot for a healer in our group right now. TBH, I feel like the people who went with something completely different from what they were used to ended up being the happiest, among the people I know. Probably because they weren't constantly comparing their abilities to the character that had been polished and fine-tuned over 6 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tatatan Posted July 12, 2012 Author Share Posted July 12, 2012 Well, thing is, the Operative DPS is still fun to play solo (or like medic hybrid), but thing atm is, that the high end content PVP / PVE groups are simply not excited to take you on, to say the least. I'd like to one day hear: "oh operative DPS - great, that's exactly what we needed to fill our spot in group", which is atm just pure fiction.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marak Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 (edited) Part of this thread is true. Part of it is not. I do 1400-1500+ dps on melee friendly boss fights where I can plop down and really watch my rotation closely and I haven't even bothered augmenting my gear yet. We're fine when observed from a vacuum. If Bioware's model is this-- Maras 100 Snipers 95 Everyone else 90 ...then we're right on target in a vacuum. I do just as much dps as my equally geared guardian does on a dummy given the exact same parameters and my gunslinger does about 5% more. This looks all nice and fair in a vacuum. Now let's move from the theoretical to the practical... In practice knights/warriors aren't penalized for mistakes nearly as much as we are. The focus/rage system keeps on trucking regardless of the situation. We, however, are penalized greatly if we aren't careful. We require an expensive buildup. It takes 55 energy/4 GCDs to even really start out rotation. This really hurts us on target switching or when we get knocked back and we have to reset. We're also the only melee class that has an ability that has a 3 second cast that does no damage until it ends and we hope lands in the right spot-- that we're required to cast on cooldown. Thusly, we have an expensive, clunky, and unforgiving rotation. This would be alleviated a lot if acid blade were passive and the cast time removed from our orbital strike. And lastly we really bring no utility to an operation encounter. As far as other melee dps go: Maras bring bloodthirst (and superior DPS). Juggs bring sunder (and more forgiving DPS). PTs bring grossly superior AoE damage. What do we bring? Battle rez? Don't get me wrong--battle rez is awesome, but it's certainly not restricted to a DPS operative in the least. At least 2 other people in your 8 man will have battle rez. More if you bring merc/sorc dps. Infiltrate? Not useful at all aside from avoiding some trash packs in flashpoints. So again-- in a vacuum we're fine. In practice, we're a clunkier MDPS in a sea of streamlined alternatives and we bring no real utility. Final thoughts-- it's still a fun class and is my favorite of my 4 50s. I just hope we get a more streamlined and potent DPS rotation sometime soon or some awesome utility to offset our weakness. No one is going to say "Ew gross. Operative DPS. /gkick", but if you aren't on your game you might get sat for a Mara who can just button mash and be more valuable. Edited July 12, 2012 by Marak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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