Vanguard Nerf Incoming

[TuanNguyenLV]

I do understand that force leap has a 30 meter ranged, I mentioned that in my post, but it also has min range of 10 yards that I also mentioned. Since you dont read entire posts, let me illustrate the differences for you in a bit easier to read format.

 

Self Heals

Vanguard - Adrenaline Rush - 3 min cd - Restores 15% of maximum health over 10 seconds.

Guardian - Focus'd Defense - 45 sec cd - Immediately reduces threat by a moderate amount. For 10 seconds, taking damage spends 1 Focus to heal you for 3% of your maximum health and reduce threat by a low amount. This effect cannot occur more than once every second. This ability can be used while stunned or otherwise controlled.

 

Vanguard wins this one because a guardians heal is contingent on taking dmg and the fact that they have to have focus in order for it to work, not to mention it costs us focus to activate it as well. I know some might say well look at the difference in cd. Well Adrenaline Fueled has that covered with - Critical hits have a [50 / 100]% chance to reduce the active cooldown on Adrenaline Rush and Reserve Powercell by [3 seconds / 6 seconds]. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. So that reduces the cd on that quite significantly. Moving on....

 

 

Damage Mitigation

Vanguard - Reactive Shield - 2 min cd - Reduces all damage taken by 25% for 12 seconds.

Guardian - Saber Ward - 3 min cd - Raises a lightsaber ward, increasing melee and ranged defense by 50% and reducing the damage taken from Force and tech attacks by 25%. Lasts 12 seconds.

 

This one I would say is in the vanguards favor as well.. The 50% added defense on Saber Ward is nice and the first 2 seconds of it the defense is actually at 150%, but the vanguard gets help with this already low cd ability from Reflexive Shield - When you take damage, you have [50 / 100]% chance to reduce the active cooldown of Reactive Shield by [1.5 seconds / 3 seconds]. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds not to mention that this ability gets a bit of a bonus from Degauss - Reactive Shield has a [50 / 100]% chance to remove all movement-impairing effects when activated. There is no such luxury for guardians to lower the cd on Saber Ward nor a movement impairing removal of any sort other than the stock Resolute ability we get. On top of that, the dmg mit for Vanguards is 25% of everything, the 25% for guardian does not include elemental or internal dmg taken, which can be a significant factor when trying to survive.

 

 

Increase in base stats

Vanguard - Steely Resolve - Increases Aim by 3%/6%/9%

Guardian - Perseverance - Increases total strength by 3%/6%

 

This one is pretty self explanatory, obvious favor in vanguard.

 

Stamina Increase

Vanguard - Soldiers Endurance - Increases endurance by 1%/2%/3%

Guardian - N/A

 

Armor Rating Increase

Vanguard - Rebraced Armor - Increases armor rating by 8%/16%

Guardian - N/A

 

So I think this simple illustration here makes it pretty clear who has the advantage on survivability and ability to stay in the game longer when it comes to Assault VG's and Focus Guardians. Not to mention that most of your hard hitting abilities have a much longer range than ours do, for example:

 

Vanguard - High Impact Bolt - 10m range

Vanguard - Ion Pulse - 10m range

 

Guardian - Master Strike - 4m range

Guardian - Force Sweep - 5m Range aoe

 

After reviewing this, there should really be no argument as to who has the advantage here. Please feel free to debate any of the points I have illustrated. Thank you.

 

So, in order to get all that advantage over Guardian/Juggy, the best possible spec for PT should be :

10/6/36 - or 10+6+36 = 41 skill points.

 

IMO, BW should change Rail Shot into this :

"Fires a very powerful shot at the target that deals 1404 - 1591 weapon damage. Only usable against incapacitated targets and targets suffering from periodic damage. Also increases target's IQ for 20 up to 30 if the target's IQ is lower than 40. Rail Shot automatically critically hits targets affected by Retarded"

 

---------------

 

I still don't understand why people actually compare a smash Juggy / Guardian to Pyro PT / Vanguard. In terms of damage, you don't see 5k+ rail shot flying around that many but 6k+ smash can be done easily UP TO 5 TARGETS. A good rage Juggy can do equal , if not higher damage/burst than a good Pyro PT. I'd say there's no clear winner here.

 

Obliterate can be used as a gap closer ( if you get knocked down from the catwalk by a sniper/gunslinger, just walk under him -> jump -> obliterate mid-air -> enjoy killing him. ONLY rage Juggy / Guardian can do that. )

 

Now let's talk about survivability :

Juggy :

_ Saber Ward : 25% dmg reduction - 50% defense chance ( 100% in the first 2 sec ) - 12s duration - 3' CD.

_ Intercede : G-T-F-O.

PT:

_ Energy shield : 25% dmg reduction - 12s duration - 2' CD but can be lowered to 30s IF the PT takes damage constantly.

( I'll not list any self-heal from both classes here because both are laughable at best )

It may seem like we have a clear winner here : PT BUT let's take a look at some hardest hitting abilities in swtor :

_ Ambush

_ Rail Shot

_ Annihilate

_ Ravage ( even the first 2 ticks hurt , and can be done in under 1s )

_ Hidden Strike

_ Series of shot ( hurt like hell if crit )

_ Thermal Detonator

_ Babadabadubadu

etc...

Blade Ward with 50% defense chance ( 100% first 2s ) can make Ravage / Rail Shot / Ambush / SoS completely useless. Also, while under duration of BW , a Juggy can make any white-damage based classes his little beech ( Carnage Mara - MM sniper. Even Annihilation Mara will have a hard time to apply DoT and Annihilate ). If there's too many around ? No problem, G-T-F-O with Intercede anytime. In fact, you can also leap out of hell if possible.

 

How about PT ? Obviously the PT can't do anything except desperately tries to walk around slowly like a turtle, hope to be saved. Or he could use Kolto Overload for ~ 190 heal / tick in 15s.

 

There's one thing PT is clearly superior than Juggy though : taunting. Yes, I can taunt / AoE taunt from 30 miles away without having to position myself. But then a Juggy can just insta switch stance anytimes to clutch guard the little healer and still throw out 5k+ smash here and there until his team arrives or when he's dead. PT can't do that at all because almost everything requires burning effect / Combust cylinder.

 

Oh, and LIGHTSABER > P3n1s pistol.

 

So yea, I don't think any Rage Juggy / Guardian have a right to QQ or compare themselves to Pyro PT. They are just as good if not better than Pyro PT. And uh, Merc doesn't count.

[Slurmez]

Sounds like more poorly thought out nonsense, like the dross coming from the guardian in this thread.

 

If they are more geared to melee then storm/jet charge will have to be made core or exceptionally low in the shield tree.

 

Will just end up being Star Wars - the sentinel/marauder republic

[Jholiday]

I'm glad Pt's are getting Nerfed , maybe I'll be able to play my DPS Merc again and get into a game. Sorry guys , but excluding an entire class is ******** , and the devs letting it happen this long is poor management.

[So-low]

I'm glad Pt's are getting Nerfed , maybe I'll be able to play my DPS Merc again and get into a game. Sorry guys , but excluding an entire class is ******** , and the devs letting it happen this long is poor management.

 

This kind of "nerf-to-achieve-balance" thinking is why eventually we will all be critting for 50 damage.

[Jholiday]

If people are crying about nerfs here , go read the 10s of thousands of posts in the Merc Av class forum showing that Mercs cant even get into a ranked group , and when they do they are almost an auto loss for their team Edited August 20, 2012 by Jholiday

[WDampier]

give PT's blaster rifles. you call a sidearm pistol a "Big Gun"??

[ShawnFish]

Isnt this a Vanguard/PT Thread????????

 

Why the hell are we debating the CD's and abilities of Guardians?

 

If I wanted to do that I'd go to the Guardian Forum . . . . "But I just want to talk about my class, and how my guardian is subpar compared to this class."

 

Quit it.

[Keypek]

Isnt this a Vanguard/PT Thread????????

 

Why the hell are we debating the CD's and abilities of Guardians?

 

Not sure myself, some random dude who plays a guardian and apparently knows nothing about assault vanguards or pyros came in and tried to drop random information against selected other information to try and make a point and failed.

 

As for these rumored nerfs... not sure what to think. It all depends on what exactly it means. If they put ion pulse to 4m and that's it I can live with that perhaps all though would completely screw tactics trying to build up 5 stacks for pg. If they do something ridiculous and put HiB to under 10m or IR it'll be kind of dumb. Might as well go tactics at that point and get better utility and mobility since you're being forced into that window for all effectiveness anyway.

 

But hard to say without knowing any facts. More than likely they will screw it up and ruin assault though.

[Scoloplastic]

I think the range tweak is the best possible rebalance to Vanguards/PT's. The only problem is that we are MUCH too squishy to be a frontline melee class. Frontline melee DPS are Sentinels and DPS Guardians. Both of which have much higher survivability than a Vanguard. We need one more CD to be able to survive because with a 4m Ion Pulse, we cannot kite melee and ranged classes can kite us easily, resulting in more damage taken to an already squishy class.

 

I agree somewhat: Even with the nerf, PTs will still do by far the highest pvp single target damage in the game - as long as that remains, they should remain very squishy - same as what Rage juggs have to endure (being the best aoe pvp damage class) - so perhaps something along the lines of buffing their self heal to a 20% instant. Nothing more major than that.

[CarthOnansi]

I agree somewhat: Even with the nerf, PTs will still do by far the highest pvp single target damage in the game - as long as that remains, they should remain very squishy - same as what Rage juggs have to endure (being the best aoe pvp damage class) - so perhaps something along the lines of buffing their self heal to a 20% instant. Nothing more major than that.[/quote

 

I am sorry vanguards and guardians squishy melee? Play a scrapper and learn your stuff. Scrapper is the most squishy melee easily.

[warsaws]

I do understand that force leap has a 30 meter ranged, I mentioned that in my post, but it also has min range of 10 yards that I also mentioned. Since you dont read entire posts, let me illustrate the differences for you in a bit easier to read format.

 

Self Heals

Vanguard - Adrenaline Rush - 3 min cd - Restores 15% of maximum health over 10 seconds.

Guardian - Focus'd Defense - 45 sec cd - Immediately reduces threat by a moderate amount. For 10 seconds, taking damage spends 1 Focus to heal you for 3% of your maximum health and reduce threat by a low amount. This effect cannot occur more than once every second. This ability can be used while stunned or otherwise controlled.

 

Vanguard wins this one because a guardians heal is contingent on taking dmg and the fact that they have to have focus in order for it to work, not to mention it costs us focus to activate it as well. I know some might say well look at the difference in cd. Well Adrenaline Fueled has that covered with - Critical hits have a [50 / 100]% chance to reduce the active cooldown on Adrenaline Rush and Reserve Powercell by [3 seconds / 6 seconds]. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. So that reduces the cd on that quite significantly. Moving on....

 

 

Damage Mitigation

Vanguard - Reactive Shield - 2 min cd - Reduces all damage taken by 25% for 12 seconds.

Guardian - Saber Ward - 3 min cd - Raises a lightsaber ward, increasing melee and ranged defense by 50% and reducing the damage taken from Force and tech attacks by 25%. Lasts 12 seconds.

 

This one I would say is in the vanguards favor as well.. The 50% added defense on Saber Ward is nice and the first 2 seconds of it the defense is actually at 150%, but the vanguard gets help with this already low cd ability from Reflexive Shield - When you take damage, you have [50 / 100]% chance to reduce the active cooldown of Reactive Shield by [1.5 seconds / 3 seconds]. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds not to mention that this ability gets a bit of a bonus from Degauss - Reactive Shield has a [50 / 100]% chance to remove all movement-impairing effects when activated. There is no such luxury for guardians to lower the cd on Saber Ward nor a movement impairing removal of any sort other than the stock Resolute ability we get. On top of that, the dmg mit for Vanguards is 25% of everything, the 25% for guardian does not include elemental or internal dmg taken, which can be a significant factor when trying to survive.

 

 

Increase in base stats

Vanguard - Steely Resolve - Increases Aim by 3%/6%/9%

Guardian - Perseverance - Increases total strength by 3%/6%

 

This one is pretty self explanatory, obvious favor in vanguard.

 

Stamina Increase

Vanguard - Soldiers Endurance - Increases endurance by 1%/2%/3%

Guardian - N/A

 

Armor Rating Increase

Vanguard - Rebraced Armor - Increases armor rating by 8%/16%

Guardian - N/A

 

So I think this simple illustration here makes it pretty clear who has the advantage on survivability and ability to stay in the game longer when it comes to Assault VG's and Focus Guardians. Not to mention that most of your hard hitting abilities have a much longer range than ours do, for example:

 

Vanguard - High Impact Bolt - 10m range

Vanguard - Ion Pulse - 10m range

 

Guardian - Master Strike - 4m range

Guardian - Force Sweep - 5m Range aoe

 

After reviewing this, there should really be no argument as to who has the advantage here. Please feel free to debate any of the points I have illustrated. Thank you.

 

this guy thinks that assault vanguards have 70 skill points to be invested.

[Yeochins]

this guy thinks that assault vanguards have 70 skill points to be invested.

 

Enjoy it. Because you were probably one of those complaining about the 31/31/31 Sorcerer in 1.1.

[kcol]

I think the range tweak is the best possible rebalance to Vanguards/PT's. The only problem is that we are MUCH too squishy to be a frontline melee class. Frontline melee DPS are Sentinels and DPS Guardians. Both of which have much higher survivability than a Vanguard. We need one more CD to be able to survive because with a 4m Ion Pulse, we cannot kite melee and ranged classes can kite us easily, resulting in more damage taken to an already squishy class.

 

LOL.....try being a sorc/sage. YOU NEED NOTHING.

[Commade]

A: 'There will be class-balances, as always, because we constantly monitor the balance. How massive these changes will be, I can't tell right now, they should not be too harsh though.

What I can tell, because I myself was affected as a gamer, is that the Powertech and his 'jedi-counterpart' [he doesn't remember the mirror AC's name there] will be forced to enter melee-range more often than before.

This is, because both AC's wear heavy armor and carry 'big guns' [sic]. To compensate that, they should get in danger more often.

At the moment, the Powertech can safely position himself pretty much in the rear with some skills and therefore we did some minor changes. These are the biggest changes I noticed so far, that some skills were tweaked in a way that you have to be in melee range more often. Since you are in melee pretty often right now, those changes won't make such a big impact though.'

 

Hello! I'm not amused to this coment, because it seems like the person I quote did never play a power-tech/vanguard.

First of all, this class dose not carry a big gun! That's only the Commando.

Second, the power-tech/vanguard is able to stand in range and do damage, but the powertech-vanguard do only have their standard attack which dose no good damage, one more dangerous attack (rail shot/high impact bolt) that they can cast every 15sec. like all damage dealing classes and some (about 2 more) other attacks that you can trigger. But if you do so, you are a target easy to defeat because you run out of munitions/overheated.

Third, no! this class is defeated if they get a stunn - you have allmoast no chance to get away...can't kick s.o. can only do two stunns for <4sec. You are not able to parry an attack you can only lessen damage a little bit.

Yes, this class dose wear heavy armor, but this heavy armor protects 5% more damage than the middle heavy armor and 10% more damageresistance than light armor. Notice, if there is a power-tech/vanguard that is dealing damage it isn't in the tank-attitude!

The sith sorcerer/jedi sage e.g. are able to prevent much more damage than the power-tech/vanguard. Anouther class would be the jedi sentinel/sith marauder they get permanent healing have better damage reducing skills than a tank and are able to fight 4 other players in pvp. The party with the most marauder/sentinel will allways win a fight - that's a fact. By the way - their jump-attack hase only a cool down of 15sec so there is only a ranged fight if a sorcerer/sage meets a sniper/gunslinger. It is not quiet possible to get away from them. Oh and another thing is, they keep running direkt through your character, so you are lost if you are playing a ranged damage dealer. You can't hit them "target not in sight..." and they hit you in your back.

 

I thing if the range of the power-tech/vanguard get shortened they should get more effects of cc or other possibilities to survive a fight. Up to now the tank power-tech/vanguard can't prevent such the damage like the juggernaut/guardian!

 

...This are facts that are verry important, I think! The class balanceing dosen't need some changes but the marrauder/sentinel. They weren't nerved till now.

At the moment it is like this:

Play a melee class and you are in advantage over a ranged class.

Force classes are in advantage over none-force classes.

 

You can do changes like you have announced (look at the top) but some day there will be only melee force classes played in SWTOR... Think about it.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Commade

[Bbizzle]

I love watching vg's and pt's complain about defensive cd's and having to be in close quarters lol. You know there is a class and spec not unlike you guys thats a glass cannon as well. Its a focus guardian.

We do have 2 ranged abilities that dont really have anything to do with our heavy hitting abilities. MS is 4 yrd range, sweep/smash has a 5 yrd range which sometimes it seems my dick has a bigger radius than the sweep does, and thats really about it. Now if a good player slows us they can keep us focus starved and we cant attack or get focus back which is super awesome if they stay just inside that 10 yrd range so we cant use Force Leap or Saber Throw and were too far away to use Sunder Strike or Strike or Stasis.

 

Not only that but if they keep us at that range then we cant even attack anyways aside from Blade Storm provided we have the focus to use it. And they complain about defensive cd's and boo hoo ill have to play in melee.....we already do play in melee range and we wear heavy armor, and your cd's are waaaay better than ours. 15% of your health over 6 seconds regardless, and you have all kinds of abilities that lower the time on your cd's. Guardians dont. In focus spec we have Saber ward that has a 3 min cd which is *********** insane considering its crap, and Force Defense which uses 4 focus (2 if your specced into it in focus tree) and then proceeds to only grant health if you are attacked, and continues to take focus away from you to heal you for 3% of your health. If no one attacks you then you dont get healed, and its not for a percentage of the attack which would make more sense, its only 3%. So if a PT hits is with his god mode rail shot for 5k, we get about 533 hp, now thats what I call mitigation *thumbs up sarcastically* And not only that, its a waste of a cd considering focus is usually a focus starved class compared to the others anyways.

 

TL;DR So to all the vg's and pt's complaining about any upcoming changes, play a guadian in pvp, and you will be more than happy to go back to your OP class in a new york minute. Because have have crap for cd's, no way to lower the cd time on them in any way, shape or form, our heal over time is contingent on taking dmg that uses focus after it uses a significant amount of focus just to activate it, we can be kited very easily considering our deadzone and no way to shrink it, we have to power up our heavy hitting abilities unlike you guys who are just use when you want, and we are in the same gear as you. So before you go complaining about a potential nerf, know that you will still have the advantage over guardians by a long shot.

 

QQQQ poor guardians.Oh wait. You mean the most important class to have in a rated group? Nvm.

[gofortheko]

Not sure why ion pulse/flame burst needs to have its ranged nerfed, 10m is just fine. I can see them making IR/IM 10M along with TD/AP, but if they nerf IP/FB to 4m imma just end up quitting, because there is zero chance I can beat a Mara/Sent without some sort of kiting ability. Even now they win most of the time.

[foxmob]

Probably a range nerf on plastique. *Maybe* a range nerf on HIB which would hurt me a lot more and in both DPS and tanking modes.

 

Tbh I already try to be in melee most of the time so if they leave the dps/burst where it is I probably won't notice much.

no. they can't touch hib's range without reworking every trooper tree in both ACs. ion pulse is exclusive to vanguards (I suppose it's our equivalent of the charged bolt?). anyway, altering ion pulse would only affect the 3 vanguard trees. changes to assault plastique and incendiary round would affect both vanguard assault and commando assault. commando are ranged - period. so they can't feasibly do anything to the range on those abils, imo. That leaves ion pulse. Since all vanguards are *predominately* melee classes, reducing the range of ion pulse is the only logical range reduction. the funny thing is that vg dps are technically mid range, but ip is the only actual mid range abil, which we're now talking about making pure melee. iunno. the fact of the shared trees in this game puts the devs in a bind here, but on the other hand...I like the idea of a shared tree. so iunno....

 

I would prefer that the rebuff stockstrike, as it is a fundamental abil to all VG trees, and the nerf forced all of the trees to put more emphasis on ion pulse and elemental dmg.

 

anyway....that's my 2cents.

Edited August 23, 2012 by foxmob

[Vespassian]

There is a big class re balance thread here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=521298&page=7

[DacRycar]

Well, as we are all well aware armor is the only defensive mechanism that mitigates damage across the board to tech and force abilities which are the hardest hitting.

 

I read this and was like...

[Junostorm]

Odds are they will just adjust some the 30m abilities to 10m range akin to the difference between shared abilities between Sage and Shadow.

 

Any changes to the damage of these attacks also affects Commandos.

[Evuo]

Not sure why ion pulse/flame burst needs to have its ranged nerfed, 10m is just fine. I can see them making IR/IM 10M along with TD/AP, but if they nerf IP/FB to 4m imma just end up quitting, because there is zero chance I can beat a Mara/Sent without some sort of kiting ability. Even now they win most of the time.

 

I completely agree. A range reduction on Ion pulse would severely punish every single spec, in both pvp and pve, across the advanced class.

[gofortheko]

I completely agree. A range reduction on Ion pulse would severely punish every single spec, in both pvp and pve, across the advanced class.

 

Its a pvp "fix" for the whiners, but in reality there are a lot of adv classes that can beat a PT 1v1, maras, dps ops, hybrid juggs, and snipers. That really only leaves sorcerers and mercs as classes that usually lose to us. So by making it easier for those two classes to complete, we go from a really high rate of loss to the classes I mentioned to a 100% loss every time, just so the other two classes have a little bit bigger chance to defeat us.

[Bobbyieboy]

If they are going to decrease the range and force us in closer that fine as long as they also bump up the damage a bit more on the effected attacks.

[gofortheko]

If they are going to decrease the range and force us in closer that fine as long as they also bump up the damage a bit more on the effected attacks.

 

Either that or give us more defensive cooldowns.

[oredith]

German SWTOR Community Manager Lars Malcharek.

is this Lars Malcharek trying to apply for the position held by GZ? he sounds clueless enough. Is he even playing SWTOR? lets take a look:

 

What I can tell, because I myself was affected as a gamer, is that the Powertech and his 'jedi-counterpart' [he doesn't remember the mirror AC's name there] will be forced to enter melee-range more often than before.

he doesn't know the name of the mirror? seriously? this is the guy that we're suppose to take information from??

This is, because both AC's wear heavy armor and carry 'big guns' [sic]. To compensate that, they should get in danger more often.

oh good, for a bit, i thought they were going to forget how valuable heavy armor is, especially against force attacks.

At the moment, the Powertech can safely position himself pretty much in the rear with some skills and therefore we did some minor changes.

and here we have the real gem. seriously, is this guy playing SWTOR? what f'n PT "stands in the rear"?? shield tech, AP, and pyro are ALL melee classes. you CAN attack from the back, but then you'd be on long cooldowns with no way to reset it. every pyro is using ranged attacks only until they can get to you in melee.

 

maybe this guy is seeing a merc, and thinking they're powertech? wouldn't surprise me since he seems completely clueless thus far.