BW, do you ever plan on addressing DPS Mercs/Commandos PvP-wise?

[PerinnAybara]

it counts as a special attack. mouse over the ranged accuracy and you'll see your auto attack counts as 97 percent accuracy but rail shot and others are at 107.

[cashogy_reborn]

HiB/Rail Shot is a ranged attack.

 

however, only your base level 1 resource free attack uses the base accuracy. all other abilities are "special attacks", and have a base +10% accuracy rating. which means that every single ability (other than rapid shots) has a base 100% accuracy rating.

[PerinnAybara]

HiB/Rail Shot is a ranged attack.

 

however, only your base level 1 resource free attack uses the base accuracy. all other abilities are "special attacks", and have a base +10% accuracy rating. which means that every single ability (other than rapid shots) has a base 100% accuracy rating.

 

It's misleading. Bioware is good at that.

 

It stands to reason that they suck at itemization as well.

[Macroeconomics]

It's because Mercs seem to want to have all of the advantages of being a sniper, without being a sniper, while losing none of their own advantages as Mercs. And because, frankly, much of it comes across as whining about 36/36/36 specs by people who don't play or understand the class. (Like 40 seconds of entrench. Hah!)

 

Anytime you want to compare Merc Pyro to Sniper Lethality, let me know. They aren't even close to being on par. Or to paraphrase you, snipers want to have an opening DoT that costs 40% the energy that the Merc's opening DoT does, have 5m greater range, AND have it be an AoE attack as well. As well as having twice as many shields, roots (Merc Pyro has none), a better knockback, better snares, better finishing moves and cover. And roll. Because frankly, you don't have a clue how Merc Pyro compares to Lethality.

 

And let me guess.... your Merc pal who scores in the top dps plays Arsenal. With pve gear. And so since no one recognizes your friend, they can tee off with their long casts. And once a team does recognize your friend, they end the match with 10 deaths, still a lot of damage done, but completely ineffectual in actually influencing the match. Seen it a dozen times.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Macroeconomics

[PerinnAybara]

They are scared of being brought to our level.

[cashogy_reborn]

sniper is without a doubt head and shoulders above merc. i finally got mine to 51, and covered escape just makes the class so amazing. ive yet to even try out MM sniper (playing engi is a blast).

 

 

some kind of ranged root would be fantastic. exchange the stockstrike root back for the knockback, and give the root to something else. maybe have the third tick of damage on full auto root the target? or, a radical idea here, have the last tick of full auto w/ a barrage proc give the target 3s of the electronet effect? (not the DoT, the 'cant escape' effect).

 

i can vaguely understand why the stockstrike knockback was removed (bad mandos would fill up their opponents resolve in like 2s). but the knockback adds more utility, which is always a good thing.

[foxmob]

Mercs seem to want to have all of the advantages of being a sniper, without being a sniper, while losing none of their own advantages as Mercs. And because, frankly, much of it comes across as whining about 36/36/36 specs by people who don't play or understand the class. (Like 40 seconds of entrench. Hah!)

 

Frankly, I think Mercs are fine. A Merc I play with regularly almost always is top of the damage charts in warzones; the only time she is ever outdone in raw output, it's by the very best smashers on the server. (And I'm talking the top three to four). And it's single-target.

I actually think mercs are fine in 2.0. at least gunnery and medic are fine. however, you're off your freaking rocker if you think snipers don't have it head and shoulders over every other ranged class.

 

 

• heavy vs medium armor? heavy armor advantage is negligible.
  
• cleanse? only useful AFTER a fight, should the dps merc survive.
  
• a merc would trade hold the line for entrench any day of the week - ANY MERC SPEC would take that deal
  
• utility? egg shell > reactive shield + dps "off heals" (that nobody ever uses because it's useless in combat).
  
• sniper roll > hold the line speed increase
  
• 30m 1.5s cast single target merc mezz < sniper 30m instant cast area mezz
  
• sniper leg shot root > merc...no independent root, but if you wanna call electro net the "root," we can say electro net > leg shot.
  

 

mercs have a slight mobility advantage (in gunnery, moreso in assault, except assault's dps got nerfed). I would trade that mobility for the uninterruptable entrench abil every single time. both classes want to be stationary and keep opponents at range. every tool snipers have does this better except for electro net.

[cashogy_reborn]

except leg shot has a 12s (9s if talented iirc) cooldown. electronet has 90s cooldown.

[Lord_Karsk]

To even compare sniper to commando is just plain silly, sniper is all around 30% better.

Just look at the top damage charts, sniper can do what was it 2.4 mill damage in ranked

while commando can do as much as 1.7 mill from the best mandos.

[foxmob]

except leg shot has a 12s (9s if talented iirc) cooldown. electronet has 90s cooldown.

 

yeah. that's biofail though. not the 90s cd. the real issue is that they roll so much **** into one abil. same for entrench. it would be extremely OP to put electro net on a 12s cd. but why not a 2s root that turns into a 4s snare on a 20s cd? then let electro net sit at 90s or 120s. instead, the only realistic snare/root is attached to abils that require you to sit there and channel or activate when the enemy is already on top of you.

 

meanwhile, if entrench worked like the medic shield (uninterruptable) and they had a separate abil on a longer cd that made them un-stunnable, then you're getting into a reasonable combo and not making the specs so dependent on one extremely powerful abil.

[ManiacDavis]

I stream the new and improved commando in rateds on the Bastion everyday and it is a blast. Check it out in the signature below.

[Jherad]

I stream the new and improved commando in rateds on the Bastion everyday and it is a blast. Check it out in the signature below.

 

I couldn't find any rateds on your commando, could you throw up a link to a specific stream please? Cheers.

 

Edit:

 

Had to go back a bit:

http://www.twitch.tv/rrmaniac/b/407096333

 

Not knocking your own ability here, but these matches pretty much highlight all the problems people have stated with commandos/mercs in RWZs heh. Not really a good advertisement

Edited May 26, 2013 by Jherad

[PerinnAybara]

I actually think mercs are fine in 2.0. at least gunnery and medic are fine. however, you're off your freaking rocker if you think snipers don't have it head and shoulders over every other ranged class.

 

 

• heavy vs medium armor? heavy armor advantage is negligible.
  
• cleanse? only useful AFTER a fight, should the dps merc survive.
  
• a merc would trade hold the line for entrench any day of the week - ANY MERC SPEC would take that deal
  
• utility? egg shell > reactive shield + dps "off heals" (that nobody ever uses because it's useless in combat).
  
• sniper roll > hold the line speed increase
  
• 30m 1.5s cast single target merc mezz < sniper 30m instant cast area mezz
  
• sniper leg shot root > merc...no independent root, but if you wanna call electro net the "root," we can say electro net > leg shot.
  

 

mercs have a slight mobility advantage (in gunnery, moreso in assault, except assault's dps got nerfed). I would trade that mobility for the uninterruptable entrench abil every single time. both classes want to be stationary and keep opponents at range. every tool snipers have does this better except for electro net.

 

People say merc healers uninterruptibility is really strong. Compared to snipers uninterruptibility + unstunability, snipers under focus can output more than any other class. Because they know they won't be interrupted or stunned when they use it. Thus they can really bring out their best deeps. While we can use a cd and actually be countered. Los isn't a counter when we're not able to do damage back at you, we are losing our selves, and you have free reign to hit other people. Not to mention your cd's are back when we try to hit you again anyway. The ability to get us to back off for 20 seconds is a powerful ability.

[Macroeconomics]

People say merc healers uninterruptibility is really strong.

 

Which is why everyone wants a sorc and operative healer on their ranked wz team.

 

The problem with merc healers is that they can fully heal for only 12 out of every 120 seconds. That's 10% uptime. And of those 12 seconds, a smart enemy team will be able to take away about half of that via stun/mezz. So you have 5% uptime. And even that a bit of an overestimate because a smart enemy team will put AoE on you after the mezz wears off, forcing you to decide whether to move or have you cast healing output decreased by the AoE.

 

When your shield isn't up, you only have a uninterruptible heal which be cast every 4 GCDs. Sure, it's a nice heal, but again, 25% uptime on healing (I am not counting the paltry Cure heal effects). And you have a 21 sec CD heal, i.e. can be cast once every 14 GCDs. That adds 7% uptime (1/14 = 7%). So total uptime of about 37%.

 

These restrictions make it difficult to rely on Merc healers to save a critically wounded team mate. In contrast, compare that to Operative healers, by far and away the preferred healer subclass. 100% uptime to cast an uninterruptible heal that costs zero resources on a critically injured team mate. As many times in a row as needed.

 

Merc healers need a skill that procs Rapid Scan to be instant cast. For example if Kolto Missile had 10% chance to proc insta cast Rapid Scan, that would be useful. With an average of 2-3 recipients of each Kolto Missile, the chances of procing Rapid Scan wouldn't be too high, but it would give the Merc some ability to heal while under pressure.

[Bluntron]

Well, they addressed us, but they addressed everything else as well. Status quo = status quo. Not to mention they hit pyrotech mercs hard, and mercenary healers were left in the dirt.

 

We should have access to distraction, on a 30 second cd. Make it so snipers aren't the only counters to other snipers.

 

Thanks for clearing that up

[Lowyjowylof]

Any thoughts on the change to Mortar Volley? I think it should help a little, but the big green don't stand here circle is still a giant give away....

[Macroeconomics]

Any thoughts on the change to Mortar Volley? I think it should help a little, but the big green don't stand here circle is still a giant give away....

 

It has no effect on pvp, as players were not subject to knock down by DFA/Mortar Volley.

[Lowyjowylof]

It has no effect on pvp, as players were not subject to knock down by DFA/Mortar Volley.

 

Sounds like there wasn't a change with today's update then...It always KD trash mobs, but nothing else. Silly me for assuming that they changed it to where it would KD more than the status quo.....

[PerinnAybara]

Sounds like there wasn't a change with today's update then...It always KD trash mobs, but nothing else. Silly me for assuming that they changed it to where it would KD more than the status quo.....

 

I wish they would restore the radius on it. Or perhaps they could make it remove snipers from cover. That would be nice.

[Llama-Eight]

Sounds like there wasn't a change with today's update then...It always KD trash mobs, but nothing else. Silly me for assuming that they changed it to where it would KD more than the status quo.....

 

IIRC, the change was to remove/reduce the knockback so that normal/weak mobs wouldn't be knocked out of the AoE. Hence no effect on PvP.

[Jherad]

To be fair, I wouldn't want Mortar Volley to add any resolve to people it hit anyway, so I'm fine with no knockdown. A snare would be nice though.

 

My tweak of the day would be to have Hold The Line's speed increase stack with sprint so it worked as an out of combat speed boost as well as in combat. Would help us respond to calls a little quicker.

[BoushhDC]

Okay, and now one more slap in the face to troopers in general: now the BIS offhand for PvP is a crafted 54 purple. Scoundrels & Gunslingers can have theirs made by Armstechs (shotgun/scattergun and pistol, respectively). Consulars & Knights can have theirs crafted by Artifices. And where are the lvl 54 crafted generators with Aim? *crickets* No such thing. Thanks BW, I hope you get infinitely stun-locked over fire-grates. Thanks. =) Edited May 31, 2013 by BoushhDC

[klham]

To be fair, I wouldn't want Mortar Volley to add any resolve to people it hit anyway, so I'm fine with no knockdown. A snare would be nice though.

 

My tweak of the day would be to have Hold The Line's speed increase stack with sprint so it worked as an out of combat speed boost as well as in combat. Would help us respond to calls a little quicker.

 

Good idea. The fundamental issue is that this Advanced Class design is entirely reactive in PvP. Anything that helps off-set that paradigm is welcome - like an out-of-combat speed boost. Not quite a gap closer à la Force Speed or Roll, but nevertheless something that helps commandos take the initiative.

[Nebdar]

This is how i see the game mechanic:

Marauders/ Snipers Medium Armored Pure DPS(one ranged one melee), so if they can't be TANK OR HEALERS DPS THEN They must be the best damage dealers in game to be viable as DPS and as a class choice, because if

Juggernauts/Assassins/ Power tech Heavy/Light/Heavy Armored TANK/DPS(one melee tank, one stealth tank, one ranged tank) have dealt more damage then Pure DPS every one would pick those classes because of that

Sorcerers/ Operatives/ Mercenaries Light/ Medium/ Heavy Armor HEALERS/DPS(one ??meele?? healer, one ranged healer, and one support class healer) also can't dealt more damage then pure DPS because who would use those DPS for when you can deal more damage and heal at the same time.

 

Lets talk more about

Sorcerers/ Operatives/ Mercenaries

those classes can be DPS and still Heal in game, so Healing is giving an extra usefulness, survivability but also when you are Healing you are not DPSing. From what i can't see the Pure DPS doesn't have choice in their abilities either they use DPS abilities or Evasion/Defense ones and if we assume that every player no matter the class or specialization spends roughly the same time using defense/evasion/escape abilities, so we are coming to t he result that Pure DPS spend the More time than any other class on DPSing hence it deals more damage then other DPS hybrids, and it should be that way.

So let's look on Healing classes

Comparing classes by armor this what i think dev though about them

Sorcerer Lightly armored needs good low Cooldown defense abilities because without them it is easy kill

Operative Medium Armor need good medium cooldown defense abilities because they can manage 1v1 fights until their DEF CD(Cooldowns) are available

Mercenary Heavy Armour need long cooldown defense abilities because they should manage 1v1 fights better then their fellow Healers(of course we died in PvP before 2.0 WZ because of lack of mobility/escape skill and ofc the gear)

So for Mercenary/Commando the Heavy armor put's the Devs in dilemma.They can't give too much Defense/ Tanking abilities because that could make the other Tanks classes look less appealing or the other healing classes less sturdy.

The Healing efficiency is tied up to the resource and its management

As Sorcerer I find it very hard to manage the resource right and the vision of recharging my Force using my HP doesn't feel very safe action in PvP environment and because of the Armor thing the devs probably thought that most / half of the time the Sorc will be running around escaping so the heals have to mean something give enough punch when the gap of opportunity arises.

Same with Operative when things go hot it goes stealth so no more Healing except the periodic one with perfectly fits with stealth escape. As i have seen the resource management for this class is pretty damn good but i have to play more with this class to be more accurate.

 

So the Op Healing comes from this two classes when the your group somehow manages to keep all enemies from interrupting/attacking the healers. But that kind of situation/problem is more the other group gameplay/strategy fault or situational . So every one must L2P how to avoid such situation/ or /and make such situation

 

End finally Mercenary if we look closely on Bodyguard spec i can see(and hopefully you too) that this healing class is designed to Heal yourself and one or two group mates effectively. The Kolto Shell if we could spam it on our whole group we would be better group healers, but this is designed to protect mostly us (our own force barrier). Then there is NEW Kolto Overload which gives us an incredible 6 sec almost immortality and when you add Energy Shield and Hydraulic Overrides. There is also an ability to increase healing when Energy Shield is on. So all of those mentioned abilities are mostly designed to keep us alive.

And there comes the Combat Support Gas Cylinder it gives us additional damage reduction but requires 30 charges to use it and in PvP madness it is very hard for me to gather is much and even when i can use it , i don't use because i have in mind that if i spoil it right now the next one will take ages to build up. And without us using the Supercharged Gas when can be as effective as other Healers. Here you also must take close look on Supercharged Gas description as it boost damage and healing abilities and this proves that by design we are always:

 

HEALER / DPS NO MATTER WHAT SPECIALIZATION WE WILL TAKE WE ARE SUPPORT CLASS MIX NEITHER EXCELLENT AT HEALING OR DPS

 

So by design we can't be better healers because that would made other classes the worse choice, and neither we can be DPS because other classes are dedicated to do just that.

 

So we and other must understand the role of Mercenary / Commando as Heavy Universal Support and as a Support we must always come with someone to fully use our skills we are not some class that alone can make huge difference. And we can't see WZ as series on 1 vs 1 fights, you fight as a team . When we understand class roles in group fighting and other group mates also then we can talk about what is overpowered underpowered

 

I am non ranked PvP player and love BH PvP especially after bolster and 2.0 changes i am still lvl 51 so there is much to learn. But from my experience when some Tank gives me protection/guard along with one DPS and i am supporting them with Heal/DPS/Stuns and they are Helping me in those situation i can see, feel and like the role that we are designed to have.

[DariusCalera]

Mercenary Heavy Armour need long cooldown defense abilities because they should manage 1v1 fights better then their fellow Healers(of course we died in PvP before 2.0 WZ because of lack of mobility/escape skill and ofc the gear)

So for Mercenary/Commando the Heavy armor put's the Devs in dilemma.They can't give too much Defense/ Tanking abilities because that could make the other Tanks classes look less appealing or the other healing classes less sturdy.

so no more Healing except the periodic one with perfectly fits with stealth escape. As i have seen the resource management for this class is pretty damn good but i have to play more with this class to be more accurate.

 

Except that having heavy armor in pvp means exactly nothing unless you are a tank. Even then it has more to do with your skills and how they buff the armor than the armor itself.

 

End finally Mercenary if we look closely on Bodyguard spec i can see(and hopefully you too) that this healing class is designed to Heal yourself and one or two group mates effectively. The Kolto Shell if we could spam it on our whole group we would be better group healers, but this is designed to protect mostly us (our own force barrier). Then there is NEW Kolto Overload which gives us an incredible 6 sec almost immortality and when you add Energy Shield and Hydraulic Overrides. There is also an ability to increase healing when Energy Shield is on. So all of those mentioned abilities are mostly designed to keep us alive.

And there comes the Combat Support Gas Cylinder it gives us additional damage reduction but requires 30 charges to use it and in PvP madness it is very hard for me to gather is much and even when i can use it , i don't use because i have in mind that if i spoil it right now the next one will take ages to build up. And without us using the Supercharged Gas when can be as effective as other Healers. Here you also must take close look on Supercharged Gas description as it boost damage and healing abilities and this proves that by design we are always:

 

HEALER / DPS NO MATTER WHAT SPECIALIZATION WE WILL TAKE WE ARE SUPPORT CLASS MIX NEITHER EXCELLENT AT HEALING OR DPS

 

So by design we can't be better healers because that would made other classes the worse choice, and neither we can be DPS because other classes are dedicated to do just that.

 

So we and other must understand the role of Mercenary / Commando as Heavy Universal Support and as a Support we must always come with someone to fully use our skills we are not some class that alone can make huge difference. And we can't see WZ as series on 1 vs 1 fights, you fight as a team . When we understand class roles in group fighting and other group mates also then we can talk about what is overpowered underpowered

 

I am non ranked PvP player and love BH PvP especially after bolster and 2.0 changes i am still lvl 51 so there is much to learn. But from my experience when some Tank gives me protection/guard along with one DPS and i am supporting them with Heal/DPS/Stuns and they are Helping me in those situation i can see, feel and like the role that we are designed to have.

 

This section brings us right back to what this thread is still about: Why bring a merc/mando as a healer or dps if one of the other classes does it better?