MY idea to fix concealment

[ScrubinMuhTub]

Perhaps, over a few other changes to our overall talent trees to make them feel less awful, and our energy system to make it feel less awful, we could have a talent that allows us to enter stealth in combat, maintains combat (does not drop combat), has a short cooldown (20-30 seconds), has a 3 second duration, and increases movement speed by 60% for it's duration. It is off the global cooldown, and causes the next hidden strike to be free. In addition, we make explosive prob from a 30 second cooldown to a 20 second or 18 second cooldown to bring it in line with sticky grenade/assault plastique, and either make it not cleansable, or make sticky grenade and assault plastique cleansable, as they are relatively similar effects and should atleast be treated similarly when in respect to cleansing abilities.

 

Hidden strike still has a 7.5 second cooldown. There would be no HS, HS, HS. This increases sustained DPS. It gives us a short distance gap closer, which many operatives are using the talented Disappearing Act (or whatever it's called) once every two minutes or so in order to close small gaps. Two problems solved at once. It's not terribly overpowered. It doesn't increase operative burst. It doesn't buff healers or dirty fighting. It gives concealment a lore-friendly 'gap closer' that is already in line with a longer cooldown 'gap closer' that we already use. It gives us another ability (that we already have) to use in our rotation, that doesn't destroy our energy reserve. It's simple, elegant, and beautiful. Add that to explosive probe and I think we'd have atleast a step in the right direction, and unless my gut feeling is way way way off, I doubt we'd be trumping powertechs or marauders as FOTM either.

[Fearine]

Perhaps, over a few other changes to our overall talent trees to make them feel less awful, and our energy system to make it feel less awful, we could have a talent that allows us to enter stealth in combat, maintains combat (does not drop combat), has a short cooldown (20-30 seconds), has a 3 second duration, and increases movement speed by 60% for it's duration. It is off the global cooldown, and causes the next hidden strike to be free. In addition, we make explosive prob from a 30 second cooldown to a 20 second or 18 second cooldown to bring it in line with sticky grenade/assault plastique, and either make it not cleansable, or make sticky grenade and assault plastique cleansable, as they are relatively similar effects and should atleast be treated similarly when in respect to cleansing abilities.

 

Hidden strike still has a 7.5 second cooldown. There would be no HS, HS, HS. This increases sustained DPS. It gives us a short distance gap closer, which many operatives are using the talented Disappearing Act (or whatever it's called) once every two minutes or so in order to close small gaps. Two problems solved at once. It's not terribly overpowered. It doesn't increase operative burst. It doesn't buff healers or dirty fighting. It gives concealment a lore-friendly 'gap closer' that is already in line with a longer cooldown 'gap closer' that we already use. It gives us another ability (that we already have) to use in our rotation, that doesn't destroy our energy reserve. It's simple, elegant, and beautiful. Add that to explosive probe and I think we'd have atleast a step in the right direction, and unless my gut feeling is way way way off, I doubt we'd be trumping powertechs or marauders as FOTM either.

 

I really like this idea.

The problem is it sounds overpowered. It is not actually but it sounds. I mean 3 Hidden strikes in 16 seconds? With just one and the river of tears made a new archipelago.

 

If you want my opinion the best move from Bioware should be to ignore concealment. And no, I am not trolling!

Until now whenever the developers occupied with concealment they just made it worst. So many patch notes and the only thing you can see is a list of nerfs. Some of them necessary of course but others like the Backstab cooldown increase only God and Georg Zoeller knows why they should be in game.

 

And from the few developers' responses in here you can only see clueless people creating new jokes. Like "teams of stunlocking operatives who force people to unsub" or "concealment's sustained DPS is at 5% of a Marauder".

 

The funny thing is they keep believing these statements. Why? Because their metrics tell so! These metrics are like Aristotle's opinions about universe during Medieval. Everybody outside Vatican knew they were full of ******** but they kept controlling their lives.

 

I believe the few remaining concealment Operatives are stubborn enough (and of course they love their class) to find their way through all the problems. Some of them already did. An interference from Bioware would just make things worst.

 

Instead of discussing here opinions how they could improve us we should better discuss how we can make our life easier with what we have. Already some nice players posted opinions, videos, rotations etc.

We should remain at this way instead of waiting when a developer will log at last in the game he created.

[Ryemfoh]

I really like this idea.

The problem is it sounds overpowered. It is not actually but it sounds. I mean 3 Hidden strikes in 16 seconds? With just one and the river of tears made a new archipelago.

 

HS still would have a 7.5s cooldown, so you'd be limited to 2 HS every 15s (3 in 22.5s if you used Vanish and the proposed version of combat stealth). I think this would probably make us a little too strong though - not so much the ability to use HS more often since this puts fairly heavy energy constraints on us, but the additional knockdown + speed boost + dropping target would have a combined effect of making us extremely difficult to kill. Also, our burst phase would look something like:

HS>BS*>Shiv>Lac>Lac/RS>HS>Shiv>Lac>Lac/RS>BS>HS**

* Without AB since we can vanish+AB+HS at 7.5s to reapply.

** You could argue that this last HS should be saved for 6s though.

 

This rotation for me does around 32k damage in 15s (this is a fairly conservative estimate). If you take off the last HS you get ~28k damage over 13.5s which is actually possible right now, except I'd need to blow arguably my best cooldown to get the 2nd HS in which is usually not worth it. It also leaves me with very little energy which is a big problem if my target is getting heals and doesn't die from this burst.

 

So in short, it would effect our burst, but not too much - but I'm not convinced it would be feasible as a sustained DPS fix (we'd probably need to drop EP from our rotation to make it work energy-wise), and it would make us much too strong in PVP.

Edited August 10, 2012 by Ryemfoh

[NoTomorrow]

Leave the concealment to really talented players that can make wonders with it. Idiots may not apply. You are already facerolling with healing tree anyway. Edited August 10, 2012 by NoTomorrow

[Fearine]

HS still would have a 7.5s cooldown, so you'd be limited to 2 HS every 15s (3 in 22.5s if you used Vanish and the proposed version of combat stealth).

 

With the proposed version of combat stealth its 3 Hidden Strikes in 16 (or 16,5) seconds.

Because you allready start with a Hidden Strike from normal stealth.

At 7,5 -8sec you use the proposed combat stealth and the second Hidden Strike.

At 16-16,5sec Cloaking Screen and the third.

 

So there are actually 3 Hidden Strikes with the method above.

I think this is too much for the FOTM-ers

Edited August 10, 2012 by Fearine

[Ryemfoh]

With the proposed version of combat stealth its 3 Hidden Strikes in 16 (or 16,5) seconds.

Because you allready start with a Hidden Strike from normal stealth.

At 7,5 -8sec you use the proposed combat stealth and the second Hidden Strike.

At 16-16,5sec Cloaking Screen and the third.

 

So there are actually 3 Hidden Strikes with the method above.

I think this is too much for the FOTM-ers

 

Good point - 6am post fail

[FalcoLombardi]

I think Operative Concealment DPS is pretty good, but it needs something. I think Acid Blade should make Hidden Strike an Auto-crit, and what would help alot is something like Force Camo. A combat stealth ability that only lasts about 4-5 seconds, with a cooldown of 30-45. It would be great for letting us put another Hidden Strike in our rotation. Possibly increase the chance on Laceration's double hit thing by 15% too

 

Edit: I forgot I posted in this thread already. Oh well, moar ideas!

Edited August 11, 2012 by FalcoLombardi

[Ryemfoh]

I think Operative Concealment DPS is pretty good, but it needs something. I think Acid Blade should make Hidden Strike an Auto-crit, and what would help alot is something like Force Camo. A combat stealth ability that only lasts about 4-5 seconds, with a cooldown of 30-45. It would be great for letting us put another Hidden Strike in our rotation. Possibly increase the chance on Laceration's double hit thing by 15% too

 

Edit: I forgot I posted in this thread already. Oh well, moar ideas!

 

That's actually a pretty nice idea .. one of the biggest problems with Conc spec is that when BS / HS don't crit they hit like a wet noodle. Maybe auto-crit would be a bit much though - a boost of say 15 - 20% crit on your next BS / HS would be enough to let us drop out 5 - 10% crit for more power which would also help sustained DPS.

 

I don't think we need Force Camo though - my opinion on being able to do more HS's has already been posted here

[ScrubinMuhTub]

Perhaps instead of having the talent increase our crits by 30% on abilities that use the vibroknife, it could simply be changed to increase the baseline damage those abilities do by 30%, so that we don't hit like wet noodles and aren't crit-dependant being left with no reliable way to generate said crits.

 

(The talent, that is)

Edited August 11, 2012 by ScrubinMuhTub

[Ryemfoh]

Perhaps instead of having the talent increase our crits by 30% on abilities that use the vibroknife, it could simply be changed to increase the baseline damage those abilities do by 30%, so that we don't hit like wet noodles and aren't crit-dependant being left with no reliable way to generate said crits.

 

(The talent, that is)

 

Well a 30% damage increase on BS / HS probably would be too much .. that would mean when it does crit we'd be hitting in the 6 - 6.5k region which might sound like it's in-line with other classes "nuke" abilities (I'm looking at you Smash and Rail Shot), but combined with a fast-ticking DoT for around 2.8k damage I think it would actually be a little OTT.

 

There have been a lot of good suggestions in this thread, but I honestly think that if BW are going to make changes they'll keep them simple. Increasing crit chance as suggested would allow min-max'ers to tweak their gear a bit more to eek out some extra power, while also providing more casual players with access to slightly higher but not game-breaking increases through improved RNG. Alternatively, simply increasing the base damage of 1 or 2 "sustained DPS" abilities would probably do enough to satisfy the DPS meter-maids, without sending PVP'ers into a frenzy.

 

Personally I expect PT's to be hit with the nerf-train, but the rest of the classes to remain pretty-much as is in the next patch. I would actually be happy with that, although I do think a minor Rifle Shot increase would be an excellent low-impact fix ...

 

How about this: Meticulously Kept Blades becomes Meticulously Kept Weapons, and get: "in addition, Rifle Shot does 10% more damage to targets inside 10 / 15m"

 

and for Lethality: Devouring Microbes: "in addition, bullets are coated with a bio-catalyst, causing Rifle Shot to inflict 10% more damage to poisoned targets."

Edited August 12, 2012 by Ryemfoh

[FalcoLombardi]

That's actually a pretty nice idea .. one of the biggest problems with Conc spec is that when BS / HS don't crit they hit like a wet noodle. Maybe auto-crit would be a bit much though - a boost of say 15 - 20% crit on your next BS / HS would be enough to let us drop out 5 - 10% crit for more power which would also help sustained DPS.

 

I don't think we need Force Camo though - my opinion on being able to do more HS's has already been posted here [/QUOTe]

 

I think the auto-crit would be fine. Pyrotechs get an auto-crit on railshot and if they're powertech they get 90% armor penetration on it, we get 30% armor penetration on all attacks but an auto-crit on at least Hidden Strike would be fine since Backstab already gets a 15% boost. If we can't get a Force Camo a shorter cool down on Back Stab or higher damage from Shiv would be good

[Wastrelz]

The main problem with concealment was the operatives ability to stunlock their opponent, killing them before they could get back up. Here is what I think Bioware should do to make them better yet not overpowered....

 

You can't use stims in WZ's any more, and people are out there with double the number of hit points that they used to have, so there is no way people would be getting killed "before they could get back up" as before, even if the old settings were fully returned.

 

BUT....other things are not as they were before and it's not that simple. They have gone through several rounds of nerfing, apparently as attempts to correct the imbalance caused by the original nerf to ops. In any case, while you have some interesting ideas, it would not be a simple thing to implement any of them.

 

Personally, I don't want to see the operative become a class that buffs or debuffs -- that's not our role. What we need is to have our role restored to us. We need to have viable burst damage once again (it's utterly silly that all kinds of classes regularly crit me for numbers higher than I am EVER able to crit on ANYTHING), and we need to be effective enough in sustained damage so that we are useful against raid bosses. Those changes should really not be that difficult to make.

Edited August 14, 2012 by Wastrelz

[UncleOst]

Hey.

Check out my idea for sustained op dps in sutaka's thread.

[DrMaestro]

What about if instead of adding a sent-like stealth ability on a 45s cooldown, they added a proc to an ability that grants an in-combat stealth? Say a 30-40% chance with tactical opportunity or collateral strike. Edited August 13, 2012 by DrMaestro

[Quinntenfelde]

What about if instead of adding a sent-like stealth ability on a 45s cooldown, they added a proc to an ability that grants an in-combat stealth? Say a 30-40% chance with tactical opportunity or collateral strike.

 

o i like that! longish CD but something that can proc when you use stim boost or something i like the idea

[Akatoshia]

I really like the generally recurring theme of having a sort of incoming damage debuff tied to one of our attacks. I played Lord of the Rings online for several years before this, and the rogue class in that game (Burglar) had a skill called "Reveal Weakness" where it could be applied to an enemy constantly for +8% inc damage. I personally think the only way this could be detrimental would be if BW allowed to it to stack from multiple Ops... but I think that it would bring some positive character to concealment.

 

actually

 

TOR needs more DEBUFFS in general.

[Akatoshia]

Well a 30% damage increase on BS / HS probably would be too much .. that would mean when it does crit we'd be hitting in the 6 - 6.5k region which might sound like it's in-line with other classes "nuke" abilities (I'm looking at you Smash and Rail Shot), but combined with a fast-ticking DoT for around 2.8k damage I think it would actually be a little OTT.

 

I don't see concealment OPs currently hitting HS and BS for 5k on anything other than leveling greens, haha. I have 1290 exp and I usually hit between 3600-3800 at the highest. A 30% increase would bring these abilities up to ~4.8k... I consider that in line with most other classes for top tier crits, maybe 25% would be more suitable.

[Ryemfoh]

I don't see concealment OPs currently hitting HS and BS for 5k on anything other than leveling greens, haha. I have 1290 exp and I usually hit between 3600-3800 at the highest. A 30% increase would bring these abilities up to ~4.8k... I consider that in line with most other classes for top tier crits, maybe 25% would be more suitable.

 

Sounds like you haven't started optimising your gear yet, my HS crits around that much on Heavy Armour these days ... The problem with HS imo is that it doesn't crit often enough - the PVE 2pc bonus means that BS does much more reliable damage than with HS because it has a 66% chance to crit vs 51% for HS.

 

An auto-crit or crit boost mechanic on either (or both) skills attached to Acid Blade would provide quite a nice way for us to tweak our gear setup, while at the same time making our burst more reliable. For example, I fought a 20k HP Powertech last night and my opening HS hit (non-crit) for just under 2k ... this is a bit silly if HS is meant to be our "big opener" ability.

 

I've always said that our burst is OK and all we need is some slightly increased sustainable damage - but recently our Jugg tank switched to Smash spec and I have to say that the burst damage output from that spec is just silly. His setup time is 12s (same as the BS cooldown) and he regularly smashes 2+ targets for over 6k each. Combined with heavy armour, decent defensive CD's, taunts, 3 Charges and a Push I'm beginning to think they should be nerfed ahead of even Powertechs ... If they aren't, there's really no justification for not boosting HS / BS a little more again when other classes are able to drop 6+K AoE's every 12s - even if you can see them coming.

[Fearine]

Well I don't believe that Bioware even looks at these posts (and if they do, they probably don't give a space s...t since they have their Holy Metrics) but in case I am wrong (0,004% chance .... but OK it's above zero ) lets put one more idea on the table.

 

First we have one fact:

 

Increased damage to our openers will raise QQ level at 250%.

Having in mind that Bioware left unerfed only our speedbikes (well they have time untill 1,4 to do it, so don't take my word on this) because of the "teams of stunlocking operatives who force people to unsub" mentality, whatever change to our DPS must be outside stealth and long enough after our opener.

 

So what is my idea...

I thinked about a new debuff. Something like a mini exploding probe.

Applied by shiv and lacerate.

Stacking up to 5 times.

Detonated through Overload Shot (or whatever other skill) consuming one Tactical Advantage.

 

The number of shivs and TAs needed make this usable only to medium-long fights.

The QQ wave is gonna be significant smaller since it is not from stealth.

Cannot be considered overpowered since many classes have the "load - unleash hell" feature.

[coerCez]

HS still would have a 7.5s cooldown, so you'd be limited to 2 HS every 15s (3 in 22.5s if you used Vanish and the proposed version of combat stealth). I think this would probably make us a little too strong though - not so much the ability to use HS more often since this puts fairly heavy energy constraints on us, but the additional knockdown + speed boost + dropping target would have a combined effect of making us extremely difficult to kill. Also, our burst phase would look something like:

HS>BS*>Shiv>Lac>Lac/RS>HS>Shiv>Lac>Lac/RS>BS>HS**

* Without AB since we can vanish+AB+HS at 7.5s to reapply.

** You could argue that this last HS should be saved for 6s though.

 

This rotation for me does around 32k damage in 15s (this is a fairly conservative estimate). If you take off the last HS you get ~28k damage over 13.5s which is actually possible right now, except I'd need to blow arguably my best cooldown to get the 2nd HS in which is usually not worth it. It also leaves me with very little energy which is a big problem if my target is getting heals and doesn't die from this burst.

 

So in short, it would effect our burst, but not too much - but I'm not convinced it would be feasible as a sustained DPS fix (we'd probably need to drop EP from our rotation to make it work energy-wise), and it would make us much too strong in PVP.

 

The way to fix Concealment DPS is to make Acid Blade 60% AP, and make it a stackable Direct Damage which triggers by all melee attacks. So it would be 250-350 Dmg which stacks 3 times and is triggered by each melee hit.

 

Also, there is a bug with Acid Blade DoT where if you AB>HS>BS, Acid Blade DoT from BS doesn't trigger. Even if you wait till the DoT from HS is over and BS, AB DoT still doesn't trigger. In order to get AB DoT to trigger you have to cast AB before you BS, which is I believe a bug.

[coerCez]

Well I don't believe that Bioware even looks at these posts (and if they do, they probably don't give a space s...t since they have their Holy Metrics) but in case I am wrong (0,004% chance .... but OK it's above zero ) lets put one more idea on the table.

 

First we have one fact:

 

Increased damage to our openers will raise QQ level at 250%.

Having in mind that Bioware left unerfed only our speedbikes (well they have time untill 1,4 to do it, so don't take my word on this) because of the "teams of stunlocking operatives who force people to unsub" mentality, whatever change to our DPS must be outside stealth and long enough after our opener.

 

So what is my idea...

I thinked about a new debuff. Something like a mini exploding probe.

Applied by shiv and lacerate.

Stacking up to 5 times.

Detonated through Overload Shot (or whatever other skill) consuming one Tactical Advantage.

 

The number of shivs and TAs needed make this usable only to medium-long fights.

The QQ wave is gonna be significant smaller since it is not from stealth.

Cannot be considered overpowered since many classes have the "load - unleash hell" feature.

 

You guys are all overthinking this too much... As I said it will be an easy fix just to modify Acid Blade to 60% Armor Pen and put a stackable Direct damage instead of DoT on the ability and make it triggered by each melee hit.

 

Essentially, this should act like a Poison, similar WoW Rogue Poison or DAOC Stealther poison, etc.

 

31 talent point skill should do a whole a lot more than 30% AP and a mediocre DoT which is only triggered by 2 abilities and one is dependent on Stealth.

 

EDIT: Thisnk of Carnage Marauder Ataru procs from Massacre. In this case the Marauder is guaranteed to trigger a proc damage from ataru form when they use Massacre. This should be the same concept for Acib Blade only then Acid Blade direct damage should be a stackable damage to avoid heavy damage from openers, which was what everyone complained about.

Edited August 16, 2012 by coerCez

[Sanen]

i didnt feel like reading all the post on this but heres a easy way to fix concealments dps. Have acid blades dot last longer than 6 secs have it last about as long as any other dot in the game. about 12 secs or have it have the same lasting time as backstabs cd so that when backstab is up we can refresh the dot. Now i dont mean have the armor pen debuff last the same length just the dot.

[Ryemfoh]

Also, there is a bug with Acid Blade DoT where if you AB>HS>BS, Acid Blade DoT from BS doesn't trigger. Even if you wait till the DoT from HS is over and BS, AB DoT still doesn't trigger. In order to get AB DoT to trigger you have to cast AB before you BS, which is I believe a bug.

 

This is not a bug, it's working as intended. Acid Blade requires an application before each strike, it is not like WoW poisons where you apply once and it lasts for <x> minutes. The buff you're seeing on your buff bar is the armour penetration buff, which lasts for 15s.

 

i didnt feel like reading all the post on this but heres a easy way to fix concealments dps. Have acid blades dot last longer than 6 secs have it last about as long as any other dot in the game. about 12 secs or have it have the same lasting time as backstabs cd so that when backstab is up we can refresh the dot. Now i dont mean have the armor pen debuff last the same length just the dot.

 

This would be nice. The Armour penetration buff already lasts 15s and should be maintained at all times. I don't think the Acid Blade poison is intended to allow 100% uptime - that would make the Collateral Strike mechanic too easy since you wouldn't actually have to worry about maintaining a poison effect on target. But I do think that when they changed the CD of Backstab from 9s to 12s, they should have also extended the AB DoT to make up for the lost uptime (6s - 9s would have kept the DoT damage ratio the same).

[Wastrelz]

I really don't think the problem is "how" to fix concealment, but rather Bioware's unwillingness to attempt to fix it at all. Call it "Georg vision"; call it, refusal to admit a mistake; call it a matter of priorities; or call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but aren't these people at Bioware are the very ones who go by "very measurable statistics" about "being stun locked by a team of Operatives", causing people to lose a "certain number of Warzones in a row", and making them statistically "not as likely to re-subscribe"? (yeah, the article I'm quoting from is here).

 

You and I know that this is poppycock. I very much doubt there has ever even BEEN a full team of operatives, stun-locking or otherwise. If there ever has been, it was easily destroyed by any kind of a balanced team. But somehow Bioware has these mystical, domineering, measurable statistics about these non-existent teams of stun-locking operatives, and that is their guide. So, while I'd be glad to be proven wrong, I don't expect to be. I'm guessing this class will remain underpowered and weak for some time, at least until the next big shakeup of classes with the next raising of the level cap, when things may get better by sheer chance. Prove me wrong, Bioware! Please!

[randiesel]

The main problem with concealment was the operatives ability to stunlock their opponent, killing them before they could get back up. Here is what I think Bioware should do to make them better yet not overpowered. I think we should rework Jarring strikes (Hidden Strike has a 50/100% chance to knock the opponent down for 1.5/3 seconds) so that instead it gives 12/24% armor penetration. Then we rework Acid Blade so that instead of 30% armor penetration enemies affected by it take 20% additional damage from all sources. This change would take away the stunlock advantage, but would give operatives more damage to do. this also gives the opponent to fight back, taking away the QQ'ing that they cant fight back against operatives. This also eliminate any concerns of operatives being OP. Jarring strikes would be far enough up the skill tree as to prevent it from being accessed by other skill tree people. The buff from my proposed change to Acid blade would actually make operatives wanted in ops. It acts like a 20% buff to all damage from everyone. This makes operatives good but not OP in both pve and pvp. And remember that the 20% additional damage is seperate from armor debuffs. Well, thats my answer on how to fix concealment, post back and add suggestions if you want.

 

Yeah, this will never happen. Acid blade puts a 20% buff in pvp and then a rage jugg, who already smashes for 7k+ with full WH gear, comes along and smashes for 20% more. I didn't even bother reading the rest of the thread..

 

Also, concealment is just fine if played right. I keep seeing less and less ops around anymore, even with total population on the downfall. I don't see them reworking a spec at is the underdog. Most ops I see by and large are medics.