DPS operative buff suggestion?

[WickedImage]

Hey all,

back again, after yet another lay off of the game. Grabbed 30 days when 1.6 dropped so I could see whats up with game and wife gave me another 60 day pass for my b-day so I'm here for a bit now I spose....

(Hi Mr. Ugly, Im baaaaack! Besides GW2 was only shinier for about a month or two. It got boring quick without lightsabers.)

So anyways now that I'm here for a bit I thought I would try to contribute some again.

 

Has anyone made this suggestion to help concealment ops sustained dps....?:

 

What if acid blade had some residual properties to it? Like it can be applied more than once from a single use, but at a declined % and more than just BS/HS for say....7-10 seconds or some such?

Like allow shiv and lacerate to apply a 50% or 25% or X% of the initial AB damage?

This could help in PvP and in PvE, yes? I don't know what the right % would/could/should be, but it would seem relatively easy to implement. HS applies 100% of current value of acid blade, but if you use BS/shiv/lacerate within 5-10 seconds after that, the "leftover acid on your blades" will apply an additional X% of AB's original value? Allow more than just BS and HS to benefit from AB and you have your sustained DPS. Maybe a 10% value is a good place to start? Maybe at a maximum of 2-3 powers?

 

Personally, I've never understood why AB doesnt work on every single knife ability they have, but it is BW we are talking about here and they seem to find new and sometimes very creative ways to disappoint their playerbase.

 

So, thoughts on this and how it could break things or be abused/overpowered?

I personally think Concealment Operatives and VERY close to balanced as they sit. I know some nerfs MUST be coming soon(to other classes), so I am a little hesitant to do anything to operatives atm, but thought I'd share this little nugget.

Edited January 2, 2013 by WickedImage

[Darkchip]

Well i gotta say out of all of the class ideas i have seen on the forums this one is one of the more interesting ideas but you have failed in one front and thats if we got a buff the PUBS would have to get one really i don't see how this would work since they would have a full round in there scatter gun but i can see were you are coming from but still once again it would just piss off our PVP enemys way to much already we are pissing them off with our stuns and cc and knockdowns and if we had this well lets just say that i imagain a few of them would be poping blood vessles from rage.

[WickedImage]

To keep it in check in PvP, I would think it could be cleansed? PvE will benefit moreso(I dont think npc's cleanse anything?), which is good.

You're right in that there will always be those who cry about a buff like this. No avoiding it im afraid. I would think this could be implemented for scoundrels as well, no? Forgive me as I dont have a scoundrel. Is there something that would prevent scoundrels from getting this type of a buff?

Thanks for feedback

[Darkchip]

Well it's more of just how you worded it saying the we would use the left over acid on the blade and well since the pubs use a shot gun and you only get 1 shot out of it in a single round unless they are a bad shot and miss with most of it then it wouldn't be the same then lol.

[mulzii]

i am sorry to say that the only way the operative will ever get a buff, is if they nerf the hell out of their cc's. The biggest problem with buffing OPs dps is tied to their many cc's, some of which are the longest in the game. Higher dps can completely stunlock/kill a player before that player can do anything to prevent it. THAT is the biggest gripe against OPs. A fully equiped/augmented OP now can bring my PT down 15k before i can do anything to prevent it (good OPs anyway, which are few and far between). It was the biggest development fubar to develop one class that is solely dependent on stunlocking...

 

To start. they should do is remove the kb from hidden strike, increase the base dmg 40% and make a concealment feats augment it to increase the dmg a bit more and put a snare and root on it. And let it be used for 6 seconds after coming out of hide. You have to do it high in the conceal tree so op healers couldnt abuse it, as they are already borderline op. Then lower ALL CC durations for every class to a max of 4 seconds and the anti-cc cooldowns to 1 minute. Up the base dmg on shiv/backstab to compensate.

 

Once ccs are brought under control, then bw can start tweaking the dps on all classes accordingly. If you change cc's from stuns/kbs to roots/snares, more people are less likely to complain, as they can still pop-cooldowns while rooted/snared and have some semblance of fighting back that stun/kb's people do not.

[WickedImage]

Well it's more of just how you worded it saying the we would use the left over acid on the blade and well since the pubs use a shot gun and you only get 1 shot out of it in a single round unless they are a bad shot and miss with most of it then it wouldn't be the same then lol.

 

Ahh I see. That makes good sense. Yet another reason to not like the republic lol.

What about residue left in the barrel of the gun?

Edited January 3, 2013 by WickedImage

[WickedImage]

i am sorry to say that the only way the operative will ever get a buff, is if they nerf the hell out of their cc's. The biggest problem with buffing OPs dps is tied to their many cc's, some of which are the longest in the game. Higher dps can completely stunlock/kill a player before that player can do anything to prevent it. THAT is the biggest gripe against OPs. A fully equiped/augmented OP now can bring my PT down 15k before i can do anything to prevent it (good OPs anyway, which are few and far between). It was the biggest development fubar to develop one class that is solely dependent on stunlocking...

 

To start. they should do is remove the kb from hidden strike, increase the base dmg 40% and make a concealment feats augment it to increase the dmg a bit more and put a snare and root on it. And let it be used for 6 seconds after coming out of hide. You have to do it high in the conceal tree so op healers couldnt abuse it, as they are already borderline op. Then lower ALL CC durations for every class to a max of 4 seconds and the anti-cc cooldowns to 1 minute. Up the base dmg on shiv/backstab to compensate.

 

Once ccs are brought under control, then bw can start tweaking the dps on all classes accordingly. If you change cc's from stuns/kbs to roots/snares, more people are less likely to complain, as they can still pop-cooldowns while rooted/snared and have some semblance of fighting back that stun/kb's people do not.

 

Operatives CC is not the problem for Operatives or other players imho. An Operative is easily dealt with if you know what your doing......although some builds will have more trouble with them than others. To be fair, other classess have arguably better and more spammable CC, like bubbles or.....an assassin has spike with a spammable BS, no CD at all, just poke, poke, poke, poke, til you're out of energy, if you wish. You can also whirlwind them. Electrocute them, slow them, pull them, force speed to them, knock them back.....sleep them.....

 

Warriors leap is not "that much" different than opening from stealth imo. I can leap to targets quite far away, without them knowing im coming and proceed to lay down some pretty heavy dps, aoe to boot. Smash puts out more for me that HS or BS. I can use it more often and it hits more people. Compared to my Operative, smash is easy mode and my assassin is so much more annoying and potentially deadly due to all the tools I have. I think if I actually respec my Assassin to a proper build, I'd be more potent and deadly.....but for now I'm just a lazy, old school assassin(was my first char and haven't played it in months until this week) with an outdated build lol.

 

Operatives can be easily neutered with well timed interrupts, CC of your own, KB's, LOS, smart use of your CC break, and their heal is quite interruptable....even their escape is thwarted with many abilities knocking them out of stealth with no way for the operative to re-stealth once they use their escape power.

 

I'm not saying Operatives are helpless of course, as mine is quite a handful for most that I face. But they(ops) do lack a smidge of........"something". They simply arent as easy to be successful on as my warriors or my assassin.

On good teams, I regularly find myself at the bottom of the scoreboard. For my other chars, I am rarely if ever at the bottom of the board. Generally speaking, if my operative is at the top of the scoreboard......it usually means we lost and I was on a poor team. It's simply not the case with my other chars. ymmv I spose?

That being said, my operative is still my favorite to play.

[Syberduh]

i am sorry to say that the only way the operative will ever get a buff, is if they nerf the hell out of their cc's. The biggest problem with buffing OPs dps is tied to their many cc's, some of which are the longest in the game.

 

Just not true. Operative cc is middle of the road. Every AC in the game has a lot of cc. As a PT you have a longer stunlock than operatives, a spammable snare and a pull. Warriors have roots, snares, a stun (two stuns for jugg tanks) and AOE mez. Assassins have everything ops have except AOE mez plus force speed, a knockback, and potentially a pull. Plus every class in the game has aoe mez through grenades.

 

Higher dps can completely stunlock/kill a player before that player can do anything to prevent it. THAT is the biggest gripe against OPs.

 

The gripe against ops is that attacks happen unexpectedly and there's potentially a lot of damage in the first 2 or 3 globals (IF everything crits -- and ops have no way to proc crits). The only people who die during the initial stunlock are those who wander into wzs with pve gear and those who don't react to hidden strike with anything other than panic and "nerf operatives!"

 

A fully equiped/augmented OP now can bring my PT down 15k before i can do anything to prevent it (good OPs anyway, which are few and far between). It was the biggest development fubar to develop one class that is solely dependent on stunlocking...

 

Spam carbonize while you're lying on the ground from hidden strike. You will get it off before they can restun you. If carbonize is down, spam your shield. It will make their opening "burst" laughable even if they crit on most of it. If they're both down use your cc break after they debilitate. If that's down eat the opener then pop wz heal + wz adrenal and kite them until they die. Unless they crit on their first 3 or 4 hits in a row you shouldn't have much trouble with ops.

[Altheran]

Ahh I see. That makes good sense. Yet another reason to not like the republic lol.

What about residue left in the barrel of the gun?

 

Lacerate's mirror is a sucker punch... The problem is not solved yet.

 

---

 

I have to agree with one of the previous posters said : it's unlikely that operatives will get some buffs as long as their controlling ability will not get some tweaks. You have the misfortune that your opener in Concealment is at the same time bursty and controlling which makes that it's hard to give you sustained damage without making the spec look OP.

Myself as a Shadow, I think you should have the same treatment as us : separate damage from stun. Instead of a talent it would be an abilty. For sure as you already have a proper opener that purpose is to damage, this stun wouldn't be like ours, and could be freely used out of stealth. Like this, as it would slightly soften the opening rotation (without changing anything in PvE), you'll be able to get some buffs without attracting the rage coming from some players.

 

As for the proper buff, there's one thing that always bothered me : why Acid blade is not a baseline ability for all Operatives ? If it becomes a basic ability, it would leave room for a nice (nicer ?) ability at the top of the Concealment tree. At the same time, I'm pretty sure that Lethality are also waiting for a slight help in order to match Snipers' range advantage.

Concerning the ability that would take place of Acid Blade, it could be an ability which damage range would be somewhat similar to Lacerate but which would automatically re-grant the Tactical Advantage on hitting someone suffering from Acid Blade.

 

 

I admit I do not know what will result of these changes, but it's how I imagine a DPS Operative buff. (These changes would have a slight negative effect : it would add two keybinds to your already full bars)

[Syberduh]

Again, ops have average CC. It feels like more because it comes at unexpected and often inconvenient times.

 

As for acid blade, it's is one of the better top-tier talents -- though not as good as it used to be. It's a strong, fast-ticking dot plus an armor pen for the op. The nerf to armor pen from 50% to 30% was significant but livable. The thing that destroyed it was putting backstab on a longer cooldown. One of the better (and extremely simple) buffs to op sustained damage that I've seen would allow sever tendon to apply acid blade. Has an added benefit of more-or-less making sense with flechette round and tendon blast.

Edited January 4, 2013 by Syberduh

[Altheran]

Again, ops have average CC. It feels like more because it comes at unexpected and often inconvenient times.

 

As for acid blade, it's is one of the better top-tier talents -- though not as good as it used to be. It's a strong, fast-ticking dot plus an armor pen for the op. The nerf to armor pen from 50% to 30% was significant but livable. The thing that destroyed it was putting backstab on a longer cooldown. One of the better (and extremely simple) buffs to op sustained damage that I've seen would allow sever tendon to apply acid blade. Has an added benefit of more-or-less making sense with flechette round and tendon blast.

 

It's not the number of CC which is a problem, but how people see it. What do people see ? They've been surprised, they're controlled, and it hits hard. If the class get some buffs so that the damage output doesn't drop afterwards, people will feel like they haven't fought at all, and they'll start calling nerf again.

But now, look at Shadows : they have more CC, but if they start stunning, it wouldn't be so hard. If they don't stun, damage will come faster. Just that is enough so that nobody complain about an Infiltration Shadow even though I have more CC power than you with maybe better destructive powers too.

If Operatives get their additional stun separated from the opener, chances are that you won't be seen as a stunlocking class unless you purposely do so. And if you do so, the opening burst will be a bit less bursty as you add a GCD and people (devs included) will probably be more inclined to give more sustain potential to Operatives.

And I'd like to ask : frankly, you really need to stun when opening ? Isn't the surprise effect enough to have the upper hand ? Wouldn't it be more profitable to have this stun available later, for exemple, in order to interrupt ? Wouldn't you prefer to fill your opponent's resolve as you want instead of granting him automatically a part at the beginning ? And especially for a CC which duration is only a GCD so that its benefits are arguable ?

 

Believe the Shadow, my opening stun is slightly longer than yours, 2s instead of yours 1.5s, but even with that, I've quite no interest in starting by stunning. Most of the time it will just hinder me later if want to use Force Wave or Low Slash which tend to have a critical use.

 

As for Acid Blade proccing on Sever Tendon, I don't think it would help so much. Okay it makes sense, but what does it gives overall ? It's more like a fix proposal than a buff proposal.

[Carnaje]

The CC is not the problem. Any true pvper knows this. What are ops in stun locking 3rd? We are ok at burst and suck at sustained dps. So lets face the true problem. The problem is the devs have no intention of doing anything but nerfing DPS Operatives. The devs even made a feedback post to view what people thought of the class. It was an over all out cry from the community stating we need a fix to energy management, gap closer, and sustained dps. What did we get ... a crappy speed increase to sneak while out of stealth. The marauders mostly said they are either OP, balanced, or feared. So what did they get ... a buff to their 3rd tree making it the most OP spec since launch.

 

So where to go from here. ***** slap any dev from BW that you meet. Play a healer, reroll, or just deal with the dps specs because you just enjoy it. The only hope dps ops have now is the expansion. Hopefully our new ability(or multiple) do not suck, we are put back into line, and they do not NERF us into sand that gets into a FOTM ******.

 

EDIT :

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.

 

Yeah, AE genocide is accepted and BW is willing to let that alone while they killed our class since 1.2

Edited January 4, 2013 by Carnaje

[Syberduh]

And I'd like to ask : frankly, you really need to stun when opening ? Isn't the surprise effect enough to have the upper hand ? Wouldn't it be more profitable to have this stun available later, for exemple, in order to interrupt ? Wouldn't you prefer to fill your opponent's resolve as you want instead of granting him automatically a part at the beginning ? And especially for a CC which duration is only a GCD so that its benefits are arguable ?

 

Believe the Shadow, my opening stun is slightly longer than yours, 2s instead of yours 1.5s, but even with that, I've quite no interest in starting by stunning. Most of the time it will just hinder me later if want to use Force Wave or Low Slash which tend to have a critical use.

 

As for Acid Blade proccing on Sever Tendon, I don't think it would help so much. Okay it makes sense, but what does it gives overall ? It's more like a fix proposal than a buff proposal.

 

Oh I fully agree that the knockdown on hidden strike is meh. I've played around with builds that don't use it. In a pure duel where both players have all of their cooldowns, vs most classes I like it as much or more than builds that use the knockdown for the very reasons you mentioned. In an actual wz, as people use up their cc breaks, the knockdown fares better even if you don't follow it up with a debilitate. It's a free 1.5 - 3 secs of tics on acid blade if nothing else. If there were a worthwhile alternative for ops I'd jump at it. Concealment has so much crappy filller the only reason to take the knockdown is there's nothing else of much use.

 

As to the advantages of allowing sever tendon to apply acid blade, they seem pretty significant to me. It would give ops a credible attack at 10m (which they currently lack other than 30s cooldown explosive probe). It would allow ops to have acid blade ticking most of the time (currently after the open ops can apply acid blade every 12 seconds ... if they can get into melee range). Concealment ops should already be using sever tendon more or less on cooldown so there's no opportunity cost. It should give ops a significant boost to sustained damage without directly affecting opening burst. Just what the doctor ordered.

[WickedImage]

I must say, the more I think about having AB usable with sever tendon.....the more I love it. I use sever tendon alot. Like, alot alot. So this would be a huge boon to my dps/annoyance factor. No more wasting time waiting for BS to re-apply AB. I like it.

Now, all we have to do is hope the devs don't read this and remove sever tendon from our abilities/rotations.

Edited January 4, 2013 by WickedImage

[Darkchip]

I must say, the more I think about having AB usable with sever tendon.....the more I love it. I use sever tendon alot. Like, alot alot. So this would be a huge boon to my dps/annoyance factor. No more wasting time waiting for BS to re-apply AB. I like it.

Now, all we have to do is hope the devs don't read this and remove sever tendon from our abilities/rotations.

 

haha i wouldn't worry about them removing sever tendon as it is a important one for PvP and they seem to love there PvP.

but being that they hate us i dought they will add AB to sever tendon which sucks as it would be good but still having it on BS is good to once you get a good rotation going and know how to stunlock them you will really ever have to use sever tendon unless you are fighting aguy that will stun you to runaway.

Edited January 4, 2013 by Darkchip

[Tamanous]

I have to admit that for concealment being able to use AB more often would greatly improve sustained dps. Ever since they nerfed backstab recharge the spec has suffered greatly from lulls in it's rotation (don't even get me started on lethality rotation nightmares).

 

I also feel that the minor sprint attached to sneak should be stand for operative with any spec. It is a good enough buff with Ghost having it's cooldown reset. Ops needs some sort of gap closer even if as minor as what Ghost offers.

[SIDIOUSFAN]

My opinion is that any buff to our dps can lead to other nerfes, a situation that I want to avoid at any costs.

 

But there is a department where I think my operative is really weak, it is "stealth". I am tired of being put out of stealth from a far distance by direct targeting and damages in mini games. the spec is named "concealment" but it's so bad at it I think something should be done about that.

[Syberduh]

Something like "AOE damage won't break stealth while shield probe is active" would be nice.

[beyondkilling]

troll

[Coldin]

Some easy suggestions that have been mentioned elsewhere.

 

1. Acid Blade also triggers with Sever Tendon

2. Slightly Higher Damage from Laceration

3. Collateral Strikes moved to 100% chance at rank 2.

4. Tactical Opportunity additionally reduces the lockout of Collateral Strikes by 2 seconds per rank.

5. Meticulously Kept Blades increases the critical damage of Laceration by 10/20/30%. (Remove Sever Tendon)

6. Ghost increases the speed boost to 100%, and keeps the speed increase while in stealth as well.

 

 

If they did all of that, I would be very happy. If they did even half of those things, I would still be pleased. Basically, changes to Laceration path gives more chances to get an extra TA and use Laceration, which should greatly improve our rotation. Meticulously Kept Blades also boosts the damage of Laceration without making potential hybrids too powerful. Finally, Ghost could become a actually useful gap closer, and compete with the ultiliy of the Assassin's sprint.

 

Beyond that, I would look at changing things like Revitalizers to either restore more health per tick, or let us get health back while dealing damage. Waylay could be changed to grant a % chance to generate an extra TA. Pin Down could be changed to also increase the slow or it's duration it puts on the target. And of course, I don't think it would hurt that much if Acid Blade was restored to it's originally 50% armor penetration. Plenty of other classes these days have just as powerful armor penetration abilities.

 

 

Thing is, even if they did ALL of those things, we still wouldn't be the most powerful DPS class out there. It'd just put us in the realm of competing with them.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Coldin

[byteresistor]

Thing is, even if they did ALL of those things, we still wouldn't be the most powerful DPS class out there. It'd just put us in the realm of competing with them.

I doubt even that. Our biggest problem is energy management and largely because of that we cannot deliver good sustained damage. Just flat out increasing the damage of our abilities while ignoring energy regen would only increase burst damage.

[Coldin]

I doubt even that. Our biggest problem is energy management and largely because of that we cannot deliver good sustained damage. Just flat out increasing the damage of our abilities while ignoring energy regen would only increase burst damage.

 

Good point. Stim Boost was supposed to help our energy regen, but they nerfed that as well. Really, they should just remove the energy cost off of Lacerate, it already costs a TA. Why does it need to cost energy as well?

[Choppii]

Good point. Stim Boost was supposed to help our energy regen, but they nerfed that as well. Really, they should just remove the energy cost off of Lacerate, it already costs a TA. Why does it need to cost energy as well?

 

I absolutely agree with this. Right now Lacerate costs a single TA and 10 energy per use. It also costs us several talent points to make it worthwhile. I think that reducing the cost to 5 energy or even free will help out with Concealment's energy management considerably.

[Darkchip]

I absolutely agree with this. Right now Lacerate costs a single TA and 10 energy per use. It also costs us several talent points to make it worthwhile. I think that reducing the cost to 5 energy or even free will help out with Concealment's energy management considerably.

 

very true because even if it procs and we get the TA back thats another 10 energy just to ust Lacerate again which is about 30 energy if we use all out TA's with the proc where as if it was 15 it wouldn't be so bad.

 

What i think they need to do is rethink our whole energy system because as it is at the moment it seems like they designed it around our whole healing tree.

[WickedImage]

as it is at the moment it seems like they designed it around our whole healing tree.

 

You're giving them far too much credit imho.....you know, having a "design" an all.....