Bioware can you explain to me why...

[Ewgal]

Because pre-1.4 you could actually avoid smashes. And it used to be a trade-off between rage and vengeance but now rage is better at AoE AND single target damage, missing just some defense compared to veng.

 

It's hard to tell if it was a stealth buff or just a bug.

 

However, this weekend I saw a team of 4 recruit geared players from a social guild obliterated in a WZ match using smash! Bioware this is just plain wrong. Why not fix the problem for 1.5 as it isn't fair and unbalances PvP.

 

/mourn the death of balanced SWTOR PvP.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Ewgal

[Zunayson]

Nerf operatives?

 

I think it's safe to say the thread has been solved. After the above is implemented everything will be balanced!

 

/me golfclaps

[Foxinator]

Whiners everywhere...

[Legendari]

were just too unusable before

 

Rage/Focus specs were very usable for Juggernauts and Guardians. Before 1.4, I knew multiple players putting up huge damage numbers with these specs. It was so obvious that the spec was already OP in PvP, that I honestly expected to see it toned down somehow in 1.4. I'm not sure how anyone could think that hitting up to 5 enemies (out of an 8 enemy team) for 5-8k dmg bursts with ONE attack every 8-10 seconds is under-powered... unless they just don't play the game.

 

Instead of balancing it properly, though, they made it better and now we have hordes of dual wielders using the spec as well (a class that many people were ALREADY complaining about due to high damage output and survivability). The occasional smash juggernaut or guardian was manageable, though still obviously OP in PvP, but this is ridiculous.

 

It's mind-boggling that the people in charge of PvP felt this change was needed, yet leave other obvious PvP lemons (see Mercs) completely gimped. I'm not buying it...

[Eszi]

Rage/Focus specs were very usable for Juggernauts and Guardians. Before 1.4, I knew multiple players putting up huge damage numbers with these specs. It was so obvious that the spec was already OP in PvP, that I honestly expected to see it toned down somehow in 1.4. I'm not sure how anyone could think that hitting up to 5 enemies (out of an 8 enemy team) for 5-8k dmg bursts with ONE attack every 8-10 seconds is under-powered... unless they just don't play the game.

 

Instead of balancing it properly, though, they made it better and now we have hordes of dual wielders using the spec as well (a class that many people were ALREADY complaining about due to high damage output and survivability). The occasional smash juggernaut or guardian was manageable, though still obviously OP in PvP, but this is ridiculous.

 

It's mind-boggling that the people in charge of PvP felt this change was needed, yet leave other obvious PvP lemons (see Mercs) completely gimped. I'm not buying it...

 

It's because Metrics™ said so

[Capt_Beers]

I'm wonder how baddies crying about Focus/Rage. Its pure one trick pony, because this spec squishy like hell. One smash/sweep, then stun -> stun -> die. Zero survivability.

 

There are now only 1 OP class in game - its assasins/shadows. Because highest survivability, high burst, ability of total resistance for all cc, pull(KC Shadow), force speed every 20 sec, can stun for 4 sec every 15 sec(Sage), and stealth(Shadow).

 

Another person complaining about the dual AC Consular. Nice work. Running a 31/31/31 build too.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Capt_Beers

[TUXs]

It's because Metrics™ said so

 

Whoever this "Metrics" guy is, he needs to be fired.

[Eszi]

Whoever this "Metrics" guy is, he needs to be fired.

 

Agreed

[NamikazeNaruto]

Just played 2 games in a row today in which there was 6 warriors on the opposing team. The first game I had 5 warriors on my team, second game I had 3 warriors on my team. It is so hilarious to just watch 6 people from the enemy team leap to one person and that person get torn to shreds in literally 1/4 of a second. The fact that there are THIS many warriors in games is very telling, and very sad.

[Ramtar]

Just played 2 games in a row today in which there was 6 warriors on the opposing team. The first game I had 5 warriors on my team, second game I had 3 warriors on my team. It is so hilarious to just watch 6 people from the enemy team leap to one person and that person get torn to shreds in literally 1/4 of a second. The fact that there are THIS many warriors in games is very telling, and very sad.

 

What do you expect?

 

Recheck out the Star Wars: The Old Republic - Intro Cinematic. In the finally fight scene, it's a Knight and a Warrior, with the Warrior being the victor using dual light sabers.

 

When F2P hits my guess will be that majority will roll a Knight or a Warrior.

[Antipodes]

I love how no one complained about this spec before 1.4, poor Juggernauts and Guardians getting all this unnecessary hate when Rage is actually there highest dps spec and always has been.

 

Gee, maybe it was the buffs?

 

Focus/Rage was fine pre-1.4. The buffs should be reverted.

[Ramtar]

Another person complaining about the dual AC Consular. Nice work. Running a 31/31/31 build too.

 

He was complaining about the Assassin/Shadow class. Which is currently the best class to play because of it's abilities and hybre tree that is viable in PvP or PvE.

[Invictusthetaru]

For me it's not even the buffs. It's when I'm clearly more than 5m away from the jugg and the smash still lands somehow.

 

I'll be kiting these guys no problem, barely in range for an ion pulse or what have you, and boom, smash somehow hits me.

[cub-lover]

It didn't always have the armor penetration, and it didn't used to be so easy to land. However, if you must know I've always had an issue with smash spec just for the sheer fact of having such a high damage ability be an AoE. However, before it could be evaded, not so much now. It is literally a low risk high reward spec. The top dps in a warzone now are always smash specced players, ALWAYS. It's not even close.

 

 

thatsn ot true, i play an ani marauder level 35, and most the time i see either myself or slingers/snipers in the top three.

 

unlike the rest of the groopies i dont play FOTM classes, i play a class and a spec that i think and feel would be best

 

and those that do play FOTM specs/classes are jsut pathetic becasue they cant get any other class or spec to work wih them, and their the real peopel that nee d to L2P the oens that foolow the lemmings over the cliff and into the pool of FOTM specs/classes

[Rafael_Peres]

My main toon is a Marauder at PoT5, I never played another tree, always gone carnage and imo I was doing fine.

Then I leveled a Guardian to 50 and decided to PvP tank. In some warzones you get 2 or 3 warriors (mara/juggs) that simple wipe everything with smashes + plus sorc healer shielding to avoid them to receive dmg. Novare Coast was a 98% vs 0% win for imps.

 

Well at least now I know what spec to play with my marauder.

[ArchangelLBC]

I'm wonder how baddies crying about Focus/Rage. Its pure one trick pony, because this spec squishy like hell. One smash/sweep, then stun -> stun -> die. Zero survivability.

 

There are now only 1 OP class in game - its assasins/shadows. Because highest survivability, high burst, ability of total resistance for all cc, pull, force speed every 20 sec, can stun for 4 sec every 15 sec, and stealth.

 

 

Must be one of those mythical 31/31/31 specs I hear about so much. Can never figure it out on my shadow.

[cashogy]

I asked Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer) about Rage and Focus builds and how they're fitting into PvP overall right now, and here was his comment:

 

Rage and Focus have always been high burst specs, but they haven't been very popular due to some usability and quality of life issues in the past. Our goal for Focus and Rage was to address those issues without significantly affecting their burst. In large part, I think we've done that, but the result is that many people are playing them now, which means there's a lot of AOE burst happening in warzones that wasn't happening before. We're willing to wait and see if their popularity is a result of being viewed as "flavor of the month" (i.e. Rage/Focus populations will naturally subside as people realize the spec doesn't suit their playstyle) or if they are truly too good and were just too unusable before. In short, we're going to keep a close eye on it.

 

no offense to Allison, who has done a commendable job to this point, but for the love of the emperor could we get the actual devs on here to answer some of this? all this post does is say that "we dont really know what is going on, so we're going to wait and see" which hurts a lot more than "yeah we messed up and overtuned rage spec".

 

i would imagine you guys (the community team members) get tired of running back and forth to the devs to supply questions and answers to both parties. have the devs that are actually responsible for the decision making come on here once in a freaking while and actually provide clear and concise respones and you might actually see some positive interaction with the community.

[Rassuro]

i would imagine you guys (the community team members) get tired of running back and forth to the devs to supply questions and answers to both parties. have the devs that are actually responsible for the decision making come on here once in a freaking while and actually provide clear and concise respones and you might actually see some positive interaction with the community.

Are you actually aware of what you are saying?

 

"Running back and forth to the devs" is not something the Community Team wish they could stop doing, because this what their job is.

 

If the developers would have to read through a bunch of threads on the forum, have to personally keep track of what the current thoughts in the community are, then that would be a lot of time wasted which should go to developing/designing the game. Instead it is a lot better if each part is handled by the people who are best at it.

 

Then you complain about the content of the response you got? You can disagree with it, but be aware that the response has nothing to do Allison's own personal opinion (or anyone else's in the Community Team), the response is directly from Austin Peckenpaugh, you're not going to find that many people in BW who are higher up in the food chain than him when it comes to this particular topic...

[Chemic_al]

Just played 2 games in a row today in which there was 6 warriors on the opposing team. The first game I had 5 warriors on my team, second game I had 3 warriors on my team. It is so hilarious to just watch 6 people from the enemy team leap to one person and that person get torn to shreds in literally 1/4 of a second. The fact that there are THIS many warriors in games is very telling, and very sad.

 

Yeah perhaps a single warrior/knight on its own isn't that bad, but when you get 3+ just jumping to a person and pwning them before they can react it's just broken.

 

The spec is broken for PvP, and was fine before 1.4, perhaps needed making the smash instant that's all, it didn't need this quite frankly ridiculous buff.

 

Ah well it's Bioware's class balancing at its finest.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Chemic_al

[MusicRider]

Yeah smash/sweep are the flavour of the month. The number of guards/maras has increased exponentially. But it will pass, probably have another scoundrel/operative story.

[MusicRider]

Yeah perhaps a single warrior/knight on its own isn't that bad, but when you get 3+ just jumping to a person and pwning them before they can react it's just broken.

 

The spec is broken for PvP, and was fine before 1.4, perhaps needed making the smash instant that's all, it didn't need this quite frankly ridiculous buff.

 

Ah well it's Bioware's class balancing at its finest.

 

Three at the same time are easily avoided. Revise your link of pawning and reaction. It is actually harder to face/escape 3 snipers/sages/vanguards at the same time than 3 smashers. But in any case which class of 3 you can face? Even three healers can kill you easily.

[Aluvi]

Smash can hit people for 10k AoE up to 5 people? You think I am kidding... but I am not, a friend of mine critted someone for 9k on his smash yesterday. My biggest hit on assassin is up to 7.5k and that is single hit. Yet not only can Smash/Force Sweep do more damage on a single target.... but it hits 5 people at once! There are 3 different ways to have your stacks of singularity up to accomplish this so basically every time smash is off cooldown you can land it on people with the full damage.

 

Every game you can tell who the smash specced people are. because they have at least 200k more overall damage than anyone else on the scoreboard. Sure maybe one smash specced player is not so bad. However, now since people know how powerful it is... most people that are a guardian/jugg/sent/mara just abuse the crap out of this. So teams take 2 or 3 smashes to the face for about 5-6k damage a piece if you are full WH... and up to 9-10k if your gear is horrible. Now multiply that damage by 2 or 3 because that is how many smash specced players are usually in a warzone. So if there were 3 of them... WH geared people lose 15k-18k health instantly and horribly geared players take up to 27k-30k damage. Just tell me Bioware... how is this in any way balanced?

 

I have a perfectly geared marauder. 100% perfect. He's been that way for about a month, and the 2 months leading up to that he was near perfect. Never have I come close to 10k x 5 that you speak of. The highest single smash I've ever had was maybe 1 7k with 4x 5-6k hits. It might be theoreticaly possible, if the person was wearing almost nothing for armor, had every debuff in the game (assassin debuff that makes them take more dmg, sunder, etc), the warrior had bloodthirst AND expertise boost, and the other player had zero expertise. Even in this situation, which I have never seen happen in all my time in a warzone, the stars would have to align to hit that top end damage.

 

The 7.5k you posted is about the highest you will hit these days, as everyone has 1200+ expertise.

[MusicRider]

Must be one of those mythical 31/31/31 specs I hear about so much. Can never figure it out on my shadow.

 

Well he is obviously exaggerating. But shadows/assassins are quite cool at the moment. And a bit more complex than smash/smash/smash/smash.

[SajPl]

Anybody saing that rage is easy to kill has no idea what they are talking about, juggernauts are squishy yes but maraders are not, end of story. One spec 2 ACs one is OP the other is not.

[Chemic_al]

Three at the same time are easily avoided. Revise your link of pawning and reaction. It is actually harder to face/escape 3 snipers/sages/vanguards at the same time than 3 smashers. But in any case which class of 3 you can face? Even three healers can kill you easily.

 

Eh? Escape when rooted for 2 seconds, which can be chained? Leap, Sweep, Stasis, when the next knights can still leap and sweep? Interesting....