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Quarterly Producer Letter for Q2 2024 ×

Stop with the class balance excuse


Rhyn

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i've played most of the classes and seen a lot of the classes in play

 

and IMHO

 

class balance is better than before, and better than other games

 

my quick tweak list for more "balance"

 

sorcs/sages -

pros: great heals, potential great dps with the right spec/player, hybrid buble spec

 

cons: powertechs/vanguards destroy this class, light armor can make you incredibly squishy at low expertise/armor levels

 

tweak/nerf: the bubble spec definitely needs to be "adjusted", my suggestion - hard stun only applies to the caster and adds the correct amount of resolve: 600, for any other player that isn't the caster, it is either a soft stun with 300 resolve or no stun at all....bioware if you can't see how big of a problem it is to allow sorcs/sages to keep a player (let alone a GROUP of players) ccd for 12 seconds, well then, i truly don't know what your pvp developers are thinking

 

sents/maras -

pros: 3 viable specs for pvp, great defensive cooldowns, great group utility, gap closer/leap

 

cons: very easy to die in a melee fest, especially when all your defensive cooldowns are gone

 

tweak/nerf: undying rage is fine at 4 seconds, but it needs to be changed so that you only do 50% damage, or incoming heals are reduced to 50%....or change undying rage to grants 4 seconds of 300% damage with incoming damage increased to 300% or something along these lines....smash also needs to be toned down a bit, maybe max the increased damage to 3 stacks (75%)...or make it so that it's a single target ability with an increased cooldown....when 3 maras/juggs leap onto you and immediately root you (if you don't have a force resist or escape available), smashing you for updwards of 15k+ damage is not fun at all, and pretty dumb IMHO

 

powertechs/vanguards:

 

pros: insane burst with pyrotech spec, two very useful ccs, you get a pull without having to use a talent point

 

cons: sins/shadows destroy this class with force resist/shroud, kinda squishy even with heavy armor (due to all the armor pen in the game)

 

tweaks/nerfs: none really imo, maybe tone down rail shot damage by reducing armor pen, but this class is mostly counterable

 

juggs/guardians:

 

pros: insanely useful cc in wzs, self heals, great damage reduction in tank spec

 

cons: none that i can think of

 

tweaks/nerfs: increase cooldown in force leap and intercede, bring them back down to earth in huttball, they can force push and intercede and force leap, it's pretty dumb, and unfair to other classes, or players who can't avoid a force push / force leap (yeah, i know, just LOS or avoid them, but sometimes it cannot be helped)....smash/force sweep suggestions same as for sents/maras, make it single target, red dmg by 20%ish.....also, get rid of the free, spammable aoe snare, or give healers an aoe cleanse to counter, all heealers have a cleanse that is on a CD, so not sure what the thought process is there

 

operatives/scoundrels:

 

pros: insanely great heals and survivability, very good dps as stealth spec (if you can't kill your target when you get the opener off in stealth, you're bad), sprint, stealth, restealth, cover healing,

 

cons: the non heals non stealth spec is mostly useless, dpsing on this class is not well suited for groups, as most of your damage is predicated on getting a stealth opener

 

tweaks/nerfs: healing and survivability definitely need to be looked at and adjusted...perhaps put a cooldown on the instant zero energy cost heal, not really sure without breaking the healing spec...dps is fine

 

snipers/gunslingers:

 

pros: cover mechanic, cover mechanic, cover mechanic, cover mechanic, entrench, damage/burst

 

cons: can't heal yourself?

 

tweaks/nerfs: this is more personal than anything but i friggin hate this class, the cover mechanic is so bogus and entrench is bogus as well lol, make it so you can leap to them even in cover, and stop allowing the cover mechanic to "block" damage, that's so dumb, they're not tanks

 

sins/shadows:

 

pros: insanely good 1v1, if not the best, great survivability even with light armor, hybrid tank spec

 

cons: full tank spec with tank armor is completely worthless in pvp, mostly because of light armor being boosted by very little with the tank stance, and shield only working on white damage

 

tweaks/nerfs: tone down the self-healing a little more perhaps, or tone down the project/shock damage

 

mercs/commandos:

 

pros: LOL, i'm not even going to lie, if there was ever a poster boy for worthless class of any MMO, these guys take it....but in all seriousness, pyrotech can be okay, but nowehre near as bursty as vanguard/powertech....arsenal is a complete joke (although it is beast in pve, so i can see why the devs don't even touch it)...bodyguard healing can be really solid in the right hands, requires more skill imo, but great heals

 

cons: although you can go pyro, serious groups would rather, and smartly, take a powertech/vanguard.....although you have great healing, your utility/survivability is not enough to make a group take you over a operative/sorc

 

tweak/nerf: an instant upgrade would be to bring down the energy shield talent from tier 3 to tier 2 or tier 1, to allow mercs to fully spec into arsenal and have a castable (with a cd) immunity to interrupts...the thing that really breaks this class/arsenal spec is the complete reliability on tracer missile and the huge amounts of cc/interrupts available to other classes....even with 1 or 2 tracer missile interrupted, you will never recover from it unless you have great healer that wants to waste their heals on you.....another great fix woudl be to just simply remove the sole reliability on tracer missile and add the buffs/stacks to other abilities (misisle blast with a reduced heat cost, power shot with a bit inc damage), as well as make tracer missile instant cast but with a cooldown

 

and i'm done...

Edited by biggermuscles
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Leave cover as is. They're a ranged turret and right now they're the only ones, and cover is pretty much the only reason that is.

 

well, i agree it helps them and without it they'd be gimp, but it needs to be reworked in all srsns

 

either make it increase dodge/resist/block/cover or make it so you can't pull/cc/leap to them, but NOT both as it is right now

Edited by biggermuscles
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well, i agree it helps them and without it they'd be gimp, but it needs to be reworked in all srsns

 

either make it increase dodge/resist/block/cover or make it so you can't pull/cc/leap to them, but NOT both as it is right now

 

The only thing normal cover does is make them immune to leaps, pulls, and interrupts, and gives them 20% Ranged(and I assume Melee) defense chance. Yellow damage they'll have nothing against. They can also spec into things like Ballistic Dampers and what not, but seriously mess with cover when you take away all of sentinel/marauder defensive cooldowns.

 

They go down easy when focused.

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The only thing normal cover does is make them immune to leaps, pulls, and interrupts, and gives them 20% Ranged(and I assume Melee) defense chance. Yellow damage they'll have nothing against. They can also spec into things like Ballistic Dampers and what not, but seriously mess with cover when you take away all of sentinel/marauder defensive cooldowns.

 

They go down easy when focused.

 

point made

 

but like i said, i put a big disclaimer, it's purely personal, and biased lol, i hate snipers/gunslingers

 

i think the rest of my opinions are on point for the other classes

Edited by biggermuscles
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i've played most of the classes and seen a lot of the classes in play

 

and IMHO

 

class balance is better than before, and better than other games

 

my quick tweak list for more "balance"

 

sorcs/sages -

pros: great heals, potential great dps with the right spec/player, hybrid buble spec

 

cons: powertechs/vanguards destroy this class, light armor can make yAou incredibly squishy at low expertise/armor levels

 

tweak/nerf: the bubble spec definitely needs to be "adjusted", my suggestion - hard stun only applies to the caster and adds the correct amount of resolve: 600, for any other player that isn't the caster, it is either a soft stun with 300 resolve or no stun at all....bioware if you can't see how big of a problem it is to allow sorcs/sages to keep a player (let alone a GROUP of players) ccd for 12 seconds, well then, i truly don't know what your pvp developers are thinking

 

Two questions:

1) Which "right spec" produces high-level PVP Damage Consistently?

I do not mean, "Hey Look I had a 300k/300k Warzone!," I mean, "Hey, Ball Carrier is close to scoring and I need to burn him down..."

 

Please, do tell.

 

2) Hybrid Bubble Spec cannot both be a positive and the main imbalance of a class.

 

 

Succinctly:

1) Backlash needs to be on Damage Only and maybe on caster only

2) Sorc 31-Point Talents and Burst Capability need to be completely rebalanced

3) Merc DPS need some attention, now. (Well, six-months ago, but now would be good)

4) Rage-Spec needs to be Nerfed into the ground (If Sorcs hitting 800K WZs was imbalance...why are we stuck with this?)

 

Other classes need slight adjustments, though I would argue we need to actually hit the "Within 5%" metric (PVP Burst Inclusive) before we worry about that.

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I invite anyone to play sage or sorc full 31 pt lightning or telekinetic spec and tell me that spec is balanced! I made a thread a month ago asking if anyone plays it and the response was LOL hell no.

Look on the sage or sorc forums and ask about that spec for pvp and ppl will tell u stay away from it and go hybrid.

 

I think of myself as above avg player and have several toons that I can excel at that spec needs a balance buff no doubt about it.

Edited by warstory
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You do realize that you wrote a useless sentence that pertains to absolutely nothing, in terms of anything right? J/K man lol.

 

 

Screaming for nerfs endlessly on the forums is a disease. It's a plague of the lesser minds, a selfish refusal to adapt and overcome. PVP contains the x-factor that many of us crave. There is chaos and strategy and a level of excitement unavailable in any other part of the game. Learning how to quickly adapt, and anticipate combat specifics are essential. It's from within this chaos that a player finds "balance", by relying on his team's and his own intuition. There have been many posts about how to fight against shi-cho opponents. read them. Develop yer own.

 

Here's a future "nerf" example...

I remember co-ordinating attacks with another jug. We were both using shien form(I still am atm), and we would both charge a target, and unleash dual ravages. Needless to say, we could drop said target very quickly. Is there soon to be a thread released called "nerf ravage/masterstrike"? By doing so, will we have achieved "balance"?

 

Class balance doesn't exist.

 

In PVP?

 

Class balance can never exist.

 

The reason why I'll state again, is due to the fundamental element called Player Skill. It's an ugly truth but there's beauty within in it.

 

Awesome post! Love it

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Xerain I think you are wrong about merc in some ways. I mean yes they can be shutdown too easily but they are a great class in huttball and if played well can still be a threat when in a premade. They do need some help though (as you said) since they are worse than others.

 

I really love the idea of a cast time single target burst class. In my experience if it is made correctly it can require the highest of mmo pvp skill to play at its peak (situational awareness being the main pvp skill imo). It should be a class that can be shutdown relatively easily but can just totally punish a team if they are not paying attention. It has half of that going for it HEHE!

 

I guess for me I have a vguard that i do extremely well on and I don't really want to play vguard-light with my merc lol!

 

Cash I partly agree with you but no arsenal merc is easier to shutdown. I have toyed around with pyro merc a bit and it was harder to shutdown (although much easier than pyro-ptech).

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With the exception of a Watchmen/Annihilation spec one person isn't going to be able to completely shut you down all that easily. Plus all a pyro's damage doesnt' get buffed off the one ability that gets sat on with interrupts.

 

No class is going to shut down all the abilities of any class...one class however will shut down 50% of our damage output. So while almost every other class is able to put out 100% damage at melee range commando/merc would be at 50%. This would be great if our burst was 200% higher than anyone elses but as it stands now those same melee classes have more burst than either commando or merc in melee range. Don't go to the "but you have range" since every class in this game has a closer where we don't get to put damage on the until they walk over to us like the GS/Sniper.

Edited by Aaoogaa
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No class is going to shut down all the abilities of any class...one class however will shut down 50% of our damage output. So while almost every other class is able to put out 100% damage at melee range commando/merc would be at 50%. This would be great if our burst was 200% higher than anyone elses but as it stands now those same melee classes have more burst than either commando or merc in melee range. Don't go to the "but you have range" since every class in this game has a closer where we don't get to put damage on the until they walk over to us like the GS/Sniper.

 

If an annihilation/watchmen is on top of his game with disruption, charge, choke, and awe... Yeah you'll be auto attacking the whole time if you're playing arsenal. quite fun.

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No not just as good. I said they weren't anything to ***** at cause you guys all think guardians are so bad..

 

ORLY?

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=563763&highlight=dps+slot&page=4

 

"They don't die just as easily, what are you going on about? Jugg has just as good of cooldowns as a marauder."

 

How's that foot taste?

 

And a good sage still got away with the speed, the stun, the snare, and the knockback. Not sure what baddy healers you were playing against or what baddy teams you were going up against but with team support a sorc/sage can do just fine. Oh that's right you only compare 1v1 situations because that's what this game is all about.

 

Old egress doesn't make them immune to roots during speed smart guy. Thus sage has no way to run away from being FFed, and they didn't have the DCDs either to withstand a beating like commandos. Hence, double scoundrel or scoundrel/commando was the pref choice back then.

 

But hey. What should I expect from an idiot like you who thinks dps guardian surv = sent surv.

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If an annihilation/watchmen is on top of his game with disruption, charge, choke, and awe... Yeah you'll be auto attacking the whole time if you're playing arsenal. quite fun.

 

We still have a few instant attacks to use...nowhere near the amount of damage we are taking however, but not completely useless. We will die badly though if we don't have babysitters for taunts and heals. Real fun comes from a nail biting victory vs. another good player not complete domination because one AC is poorly thought out and implemented. I actually feel bad for arsenal mercs when I play my guardian. I take very little pleasure in destroying them knowing no matter what they do they will die.

Edited by Aaoogaa
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You know i'm not sure if your screwing with me or a tard really. Ok by your logic: Guardians, scoundrel, Shadow, Sents, and vanguards are op. So my question is if 3/4 of the classes in the game are OP doesn't that mean there is some balance between those classes? The other 25% are under performing?

 

First off, I don't consider guardians to be OP. Focus guardians put out nice damage, but they die like little *****es, and sweep bombs are easy as hell to anticipate and avoid, especially if you don't stand together like scared little kittens.

 

Second, 5/8 =/= 3/4. Please go back to school.

Edited by Smashbrother
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There's a reason you don't see concealment operatives in rateds, or even operations for that matter, lol.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the spec, and it performs well - especially 1 on 1. It simply doesn't do quite what other classes can.

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ORLY?

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=563763&highlight=dps+slot&page=4

 

"They don't die just as easily, what are you going on about? Jugg has just as good of cooldowns as a marauder."

 

How's that foot taste?

 

 

 

Old egress doesn't make them immune to roots during speed smart guy. Thus sage has no way to run away from being FFed, and they didn't have the DCDs either to withstand a beating like commandos. Hence, double scoundrel or scoundrel/commando was the pref choice back then.

 

But hey. What should I expect from an idiot like you who thinks dps guardian surv = sent surv.

 

Seriously if you think juggs are lacking compared to marauders you're a bad. Say it again. If you think juggs are lacking compared to marauders you're a bad.

 

And who has roots to hold them down all the time? Sniper and marauder. It's not a 100% up time root, so they could get away just fine if they pulled their cool downs right, maybe you just have an abundance of bads on your server huh, didn't the one team have a guy at like 3700 rating on Bastion... Yeah 1 team that beats you all up. AWESOME. And no the bubble is still the best burst stop in the game and it has been since before sorc/sage buff. Commando healers get shut down too easily and have 0 escape abilities to say they were better than a sorc is so wrong.

 

It's all smash vs smash in that thread yo. They are pretty equal with a 100% uptime of what 39% armor on the jugg vs 32 on the marauder? You're the idiot who thinks guardians are bad.

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