OP-owertechs

[iDraxter]

I still think my favourite thing in the world to chuckle at is seeing a PT/VG, Sin/Shadow, Jugg/Guard with 600k+ damage and 0 (zero) protection points. I don't care if you aren't guarding people, but for crying out loud use those taunts ladies!

just so u learn something today u cannot put guard on anybody without using the tank cylinder/stance(available for all tank AC`s) which no sane pyrotech or smasher will do.

 

P.S. OP? we are glass cannon, we go down super fast when focused even the mercs(shocking i know) have atleast a 8 second mezz(can instant cast it too) but VG/PT is the only class in-game with 0 get the hell outta here skill so pls.....

Edited January 30, 2013 by iDraxter

[Kontraz]

just so u learn something today u cannot put guard on anybody without using the tank cylinder/stance(available for all tank AC`s) which no sane pyrotech or smasher will do.

 

P.S. OP? we are glass cannon, we go down super fast when focused even the mercs(shocking i know) have atleast a 8 second mezz(can instant cast it too) but VG/PT is the only class in-game with 0 get the hell outta here skill so pls.....

 

he said he doesn't care if you aren't guarding people (IE - it doesn't matter if you are using your tank cell or stance) you still have the ability to use taunts, which can greatly help in many situations.

[iDraxter]

he said he doesn't care if you aren't guarding people (IE - it doesn't matter if you are using your tank cell or stance) you still have the ability to use taunts, which can greatly help in many situations.

we can`t say for sure if I understand it wrong or u , anyway ofc use taunts only bads wouldn`t, I mean besides actually helping ur team take less dmg u get medals for doing it so why wouldn`t u use them

[cashogy_reborn]

its not catering to 5% of your player base; its balancing the game around the greatest potential of each class.

 

when you do not balance the game around the greatest potential, you get things like the recent change to resolve. the devs blatantly said that it was a change to lessen punishment of mistakes by bad players. and of course, resolve is now more frustrating than ever before.

[Megatfx]

i was unaware that SWtOR was self-aware

 

 

oh, and ps: http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f84/redsoxfanatic08/swtor2012-12-3101-06-45-63_zps77bbd3bf.png

 

that was from about a week ago

 

And this is what you call a Bad Powertech. 0 protection. He didn't even use Taunt. I get 600k damage and put out 60k+ protection on my team.

[Molokia]

And this is what you call a Bad Powertech. 0 protection. He didn't even use Taunt. I get 600k damage and put out 60k+ protection on my team.

 

^ this

[cashogy_reborn]

And this is what you call a Bad Powertech. 0 protection. He didn't even use Taunt. I get 600k damage and put out 60k+ protection on my team.

 

sup?

 

might want to check the screenshot again sir

[Dacce]

just so u learn something today u cannot put guard on anybody without using the tank cylinder/stance(available for all tank AC`s) which no sane pyrotech or smasher will do.

 

P.S. OP? we are glass cannon, we go down super fast when focused even the mercs(shocking i know) have atleast a 8 second mezz(can instant cast it too) but VG/PT is the only class in-game with 0 get the hell outta here skill so pls.....

 

you didn't teach me anything. I have a guardian and a PT so I know all about the stances/cylinder restrictions.

 

But to get through an entire WZ with zero protection? Either you aren't taunting or your opponents are so aware of you taunting that they are switching to you the second you do. But considering they are punching out 600k dps, they are probably getting left well alone.

[cycao]

no

 

Afaik every sin I talked says they can kill in fewer gcd than there assassins but the overall dps in general is hands down in favor of their pt (most have them). All I ever see (at least for regs) is myself coming in in 2nd to any good pt/vg, no matter how I have my gear itemized.

 

my guild, which is arguably the best guild on unarguably the most competitive pvp server refused to run me as dps until I made my four pillars topic. After making it I've been dpsing a lot. The only things that somewhat consistently outdamages me are lethality snipers and a lot of that damage is a weak AoE dot so w\e. And I almost never die more than the other melee dps.

 

This is just myself speaking but I am so *********** sick of this "your sever vs my server bull ****". There is absolutely no way to determan which server is better so I will leave that at that. I cannot really comment to much more on this as my guild can barely get a team together so I have very limited experience with only 90 ranked games.

 

he either isn't geared correctly, was forced to spend a lot of time at offnodes/in stealth or just isn't good.

 

All I know is he was running infiltration whether or not he was node guarding or not I cannot fully say.

 

All I can do is speak for experience for ranked and regs that happen on my sever. For regs I can keep up and stay with the best of the pt/vg. Because my guild has not and afaik will never let me dps I cannot really go off anything but what you say about your experience on your server.

 

I can say that in all the games that I have played (again limited) but with my bud who is an officer and has a PT and Sin we have never really seen a top ranked guild use a dps shadow/sin that has the optimal build online.

[Senga_J]

PT is probably the easiest class to play with one of the highest damage potentials. IMO it does need to be toned down a tad when rail-shots do up to 5k damage.

 

One time on my PT my biggest hit ended up being over 7k, and I seriously doubt it was thermal detonator. But then again, on average my biggest hit only gets to around 4.1k

[cashogy_reborn]

^ this

 

maybe actually try looking at the screenshot first?

 

[LastWizard]

Ok you refuse to play because you think the PT is op. You complain about the merc. With all due respect to add to another thread or play another class to until BW fixes it. Just play a different class all together and you'll get over it. Mercs are bad/ hard to use. We get it.

[foxmob]

its not catering to 5% of your player base; its balancing the game around the greatest potential of each class.

 

when you do not balance the game around the greatest potential, you get things like the recent change to resolve. the devs blatantly said that it was a change to lessen punishment of mistakes by bad players. and of course, resolve is now more frustrating than ever before.

 

well...yeah. I don't have a big problem with catering to the middle man (not punishing them for doubling up on stuns). what I have a problem with - and I think just about EVERYONE is with me on this, good or bad - is that the end result was more ppl in stun rather than less, and outside of a bubble-stunning sage and perhaps a ranged dps class or two that gets an extra gcd to cast...I don't think anyone was actually happy about the result.

 

back to the 5% thing. if you're talking about *subtle* changes, then sure. nobody's going to raise a stink. however, if you're talking about making VG's more complicated, or reverting smash from derpsville...or asking a gunnery commando to do more than grav, FA and the occaisional demo+hib, then I think that will drive ppl away. You have to give limited players an easy sauce class like assault vg. it's very easy to do well - like any class, those who do it exceptionally are simply better players. although I don't think the smash thing would change much cuz maras have multiple trees that are fairly accessible and I doubt average joe leveled a new jugg just to take advantage of the easy new smash.

[ArchangelLBC]

my statement was a general one

 

 

wrong. technically concealment operative has the highest burst, but whatever is "best" doesn't matter because you will never "burst" someone down by yourself or in your "burst" rotation against any good team regardless of your class/spec.

 

This is only because most of the classes capable of doing it like Combat Sent/Carnage Mara are completely shut down by bubble stuns. Also the most frontloaded burst is not the same as the most burst. Operatives can't sustain it long enough for the kill. Others damn sure can do that.

 

that said, assassin burst is better and being able to do your "burst" from 10m isn't in any way noteworthy.

It is in an environment where bubble stuns are a thing. People that have to get within 4m to do their damage are at a severe disadvantage to people who can do it from 10m. Been playing a lot of sent lately and shadow and you notice the difference big time between a class where half of it's abilities are usable from 10m vs one that needs to be close in to hit. I wasn't saying that these were advantages PTs have over Assassins, I was saying this was an advantage PTs had. Also in way is Shadow burst better? I'll concede for the sake of argument that it's close enough as to not matter but why do you think it's better? Because its your class and you're the almighty waka? Because it mathematically bears out?

 

you can't be serious

This is the part where you're a self important douche nozzle. I am very open to being shown that I am dead wrong, but if you're just gonna pass over the comment then why even bother quoting it? That whole 10m thing I mentioned? That makes it harder to run away from. That makes it harder to shutdown with bubbles or grenades since it allows them to be more spread out while still dropping damage on targets. The fact that every single bit of it is instant and none of it is truly just filler for the sake of filler means it's hard to truly shut down. Again, those aren't necessarily advantages that Shadows don't also have, but lets not sit here and pretend that they aren't advantages.

 

 

that's more important? really? this game has such a low skillcap as is, completely irrelevant to high level rateds.

KISS is a great principle. Also the fact that your spec is superior in live play to others is precisely due to the fact that its simpler than other specs which require much more attention. Also, as UGLY said, a lower skill cap means that a larger majority of players who play the class can reach its potential, and in the case of PT that potential is very high, while the effort to get it is rather low.

 

Also like how you ignored my comment that since VGs don't fill any other niche in a warzone they're much more free to concentrate on DPS, whereas the first shadow on your team is ALWAYS going to be auto assigned the job of guarding in a tank hybrid spec, and its tough to argue with that.

 

Comments in red.

 

he said you're unnecessarily mean and aggressive. meh. kind of. I jumped on ugly for less.

 

Mean and aggressive is fine. Blatant assertion and deciding not to even bother with a conversation isn't. I should believe him because he says so? Because he's on the top pvp server? His arrogance is much more offensive than his aggressiveness.

Edited January 30, 2013 by ArchangelLBC

[cashogy_reborn]

well...yeah. I don't have a big problem with catering to the middle man (not punishing them for doubling up on stuns). what I have a problem with - and I think just about EVERYONE is with me on this, good or bad - is that the end result was more ppl in stun rather than less, and outside of a bubble-stunning sage and perhaps a ranged dps class or two that gets an extra gcd to cast...I don't think anyone was actually happy about the result.

 

back to the 5% thing. if you're talking about *subtle* changes, then sure. nobody's going to raise a stink. however, if you're talking about making VG's more complicated, or reverting smash from derpsville...or asking a gunnery commando to do more than grav, FA and the occaisional demo+hib, then I think that will drive ppl away. You have to give limited players an easy sauce class like assault vg. it's very easy to do well - like any class, those who do it exceptionally are simply better players. although I don't think the smash thing would change much cuz maras have multiple trees that are fairly accessible and I doubt average joe leveled a new jugg just to take advantage of the easy new smash.

 

you can balance the game without changing core class mechanics.

 

this game is not far off from decent balance. Smash needs to be addressed, bubble stun needs to be caster-only, and Merc/Mando need something to become viable in PvP. you address those 3 things, and PvP becomes far more balanced than it is currently.

 

resolve also affects balance, and that needs to be reverted back to the way it was. or an even better solution is to just scrap both iterations, and actually come up with something that makes sense

[ArchangelLBC]

well...yeah. I don't have a big problem with catering to the middle man (not punishing them for doubling up on stuns). what I have a problem with - and I think just about EVERYONE is with me on this, good or bad - is that the end result was more ppl in stun rather than less, and outside of a bubble-stunning sage and perhaps a ranged dps class or two that gets an extra gcd to cast...I don't think anyone was actually happy about the result.

 

back to the 5% thing. if you're talking about *subtle* changes, then sure. nobody's going to raise a stink. however, if you're talking about making VG's more complicated, or reverting smash from derpsville...or asking a gunnery commando to do more than grav, FA and the occaisional demo+hib, then I think that will drive ppl away. You have to give limited players an easy sauce class like assault vg. it's very easy to do well - like any class, those who do it exceptionally are simply better players. although I don't think the smash thing would change much cuz maras have multiple trees that are fairly accessible and I doubt average joe leveled a new jugg just to take advantage of the easy new smash.

 

Most commandos would honestly probably be fine if the class was made a bit more complicated. Not even for the sake of being complicated but grav round is too big of an akilles heel in a that spec. I've always figured most people chose the class either to be the ****** wielding two pistols while dressed like bobba fett's more awesome cousin, or to be the super ****** trooper with the giant assault cannon. At least that was mostly why I chose it originally. Aesthetic.

 

And after the fact I'll admit I enjoyed the class well enough and still do. Love it.....in PVE. In PVP I'd kill for an overhaul of the tree if it meant I could use it in PVP and not be a joke. Better yet leave gunnery as is and just completely overhaul assault. We aren't VGs and are never gonna be. Just replace that tree with something that doesn't suck.

[RankorSSGS]

Comments in red.

 

 

 

Mean and aggressive is fine. Blatant assertion and deciding not to even bother with a conversation isn't. I should believe him because he says so? Because he's on the top pvp server? His arrogance is much more offensive than his aggressiveness.

 

Fine, I'll speak to your questions then.

 

1. Front loaded burst might as well be the only burst that matters. Even minimal setup lets the enemy team react. Once you get all 3 dots rolling, a shock for the UK buff, and a maul proc, and a DF, full 31 pt madness could conceivably have even nastier burst than deception. Tell me how often that works for you.

 

2. PT burst vs assassin burst. Well lets see here. In a perfect world with all procs and crits:

 

TD+ED+FB+RS+FB+RS+CGC DoTs.

 

DF+Discharge+Shock+Chain Shock+Maul+2 Thrash+Shock

 

This could really go either way I think, there are way too many variables, crits, procs, how many GCD's you have before it's no longer considered "burst" etc.

 

3, Frankly, I agree with Waka about how stupid that claim that PT damage is uncounterable is. It's damage, it is vulnerable to all defensive cd's, taunts, or anything else that assassin damage is. And not that it really matters, but in a 1v1, force shroud utterly shuts PT's down for a full 3 secs. Time it right and you resist ED and TD as well.

 

4. I also agree with Waka about the fact that "difficulty" of a spec doesn't matter. I really do not care if you're a 3 year old who got on daddy's computer while he was afk, or if you're the best player on the server. Good players do better than bad players, regardless of spec, class or any other factor. Balance of a spec is FAR more important than how difficult it is to play said spec.

[Molokia]

maybe actually try looking at the screenshot first?

 

 

I just looked at it, still stand by the 600k / no prot for powertechs / vg's though =P

[ArchangelLBC]

Fine, I'll speak to your questions then.

 

Cool. All I ask yo.

 

1. Front loaded burst might as well be the only burst that matters. Even minimal setup lets the enemy team react. Once you get all 3 dots rolling, a shock for the UK buff, and a maul proc, and a DF, full 31 pt madness could conceivably have even nastier burst than deception. Tell me how often that works for you.

 

I think there's a balancing act. You're right that anything that requires a significant amount of incombat setup isn't really worth talking about. See also Gunnery Commandos. We're all still human though, so minimal setup time is still ok, but you have to get to the punchline pretty damn quick. Infiltration Hybrid spec still needs some setup, but it doesn't need a lot of it and so it manages that balance act. The burst is still backloaded to some extent, in the sense that the hammer drops towards the end of it rather than the beginning, but it gets to that backload quick enough. Concealment operative's problem is that the opener is great but there's nothing on the tail end really worth talking about. It has the opposite problem as your example. The classes I consider to be good burst classes are the ones who are able to make this balance.

 

2. PT burst vs assassin burst. Well lets see here. In a perfect world with all procs and crits:

 

TD+ED+FB+RS+FB+RS+CGC DoTs.

 

DF+Discharge+Shock+Chain Shock+Maul+2 Thrash+Shock

 

This could really go either way I think, there are way too many variables, crits, procs, how many GCD's you have before it's no longer considered "burst" etc.

 

It could go either way, but stats and set bonuses and what not being what they are, I think the odds favor it going the PT's way on average. Force Breach (discharge) doesn't really become a super heavy hitter without at least a few stacks of exit strategy. It's more the RNGness that I think puts shadows behind here. Not a lot behind. A little behind. In a perfect world the shadow wins, and when Force Potency is up they can have a large slice of that perfect world. On the other hand, between set bonuses granting high crit rate to HiB, several talents granting high crit rate to tech attacks, and the ability to thus focus more on power, the PT is just a tad less RNG dependent.

 

Let me be clear, if I wasn't before, that I don't think shadow burst is bad in the infil hybrid. It's pretty good. I think PTs is slightly better is all.

 

Of course there's also an argument to be made that because of the delayed nature of Sticky Grenade/Assault Plastique, if your healers aren't right on top of things (or you aren't an assassin/shadow who can just cheese it with Resilience) their burst becomes better just because they can effectively hit you 4 times in 2 GCDs after basically a 3 GCD setup, and one of those other hits is a 5k HiB, and the next GCD is another HiB. That can be pretty tough on healers.

 

3, Frankly, I agree with Waka about how stupid that claim that PT damage is uncounterable is. It's damage, it is vulnerable to all defensive cd's, taunts, or anything else that assassin damage is. And not that it really matters, but in a 1v1, force shroud utterly shuts PT's down for a full 3 secs. Time it right and you resist ED and TD as well.

 

I think "counterable" and "uncounterable" have been poorly defined here so please let me clarify what I mean, and let me emphasize that I'm making a more or less general statement about PT, not a claim that PT has this particular advantage over assassin. I consider a DPS class counterable when the thing that makes them dangerous can be readily and reliably completely shut down by their opponents to the point of making that class (or spec) a complete non issue.

 

An easy example is gunnery commando. Completely shut down by someone with an interrupt. Another easy example is Combat Sent/Carnage Mara. While their speed buff is awesome, what makes them dangerous in combat is the incredible potential burst offered by Precision Slash/Gore. But unless the sent in question was white barred (harder to do in the current environment) they are pretty easy to shut down, ESPECIALLY with bubble stuns. Before people had to actively look for the buff on the opponent's buff bar. PS itself isn't exactly flashy, so if they used it along with Blade Rush/Massacre spam as opposed to with Masterstrike/Gore it was harder to counter and required more focus, plus you always had to ask whether countering PS now would cost you later if you couldn't GBTF or PS>MS that is. Now with that AND bubble stuns the spec is just very meh, which is one reason so many switched over to Focus/Rage (ok the insta-guaranteed 6k hits are nice too, I won't lie, but I'd much rather play combat if I could).

 

PT, and yes to a large extent Infiltration Hybrid Shadows, have burst which is mostly uncounterable. Their attacks are all instant so no interrupting or out ranging them during the channel. Pretty much all the procs and what not last a long time. You can slow them down via stuns and what not, just like you can slow anyone down, but you can't shut it down completely. A combat sent whose wasted his 3 GCDs of PS being knocked back or stunned has been shutdown. A shadow who was knocked down, or carbonized, or what have you before they can use shadowstrike can always just shadowstrike after they stop being stunned. This same principle holds with smash. You can keep yourself spread out so they aren't hitting everyone, but you can't make it so they never get off a 5-6k smash on anyone. That's gonna happen. You can slow it down with CC, take the edge off with taunts etc, but it's gonna happen.

 

So when I say PT damage is uncounterable, I'm not saying that it can't be mitigated by the things which mitigate most of the damage in this game. I'm saying that you can't well and truly stop it. You can delay it, but you can't really completely stop it to the point that the PT becomes a nonthreat. I know you can't be suggesting that.

 

4. I also agree with Waka about the fact that "difficulty" of a spec doesn't matter. I really do not care if you're a 3 year old who got on daddy's computer while he was afk, or if you're the best player on the server. Good players do better than bad players, regardless of spec, class or any other factor. Balance of a spec is FAR more important than how difficult it is to play said spec.

 

Yes and no.

 

Let us stipulate for the sake of argument that PT burst and Shadow burst are roughly the same potentially.

 

If 50% of the player base can reach 90% of that potential on PT while only 5% of the player base can reach that same potential on Shadow, then automatically you will be more inclined to take a random PT over a random Shadow, because you can rely on the fact that the PT will do good damage, whereas you have to know that that shadow is a top 5% player, because otherwise you'd be doing better with the other choice.

 

That's kind of an extreme as way of example, but I think the principle is sound.

 

 

Also there's still the niche argument. You get an Assault VG you can rely on the fact that they've spent their time and energy learing to play, and properly gearing that one spec. With shadow you might have people who have spent their literally entire PVP career as node guards, or people who have grinded several sets of gear as opposed to the VG whose been able to focus the same amount of time on perfectly itemizing one set of gear.

 

These things should be considered.

 

Anyway thanks for continuing the conversation! I find it much more enjoyable, and there is a much better chance of me realizing I'm wrong and figuring out how to fix that when someone bothers to take the time to represent a view point rather than just blowing me off.

Edited January 30, 2013 by ArchangelLBC

[cashogy_reborn]

I just looked at it, still stand by the 600k / no prot for powertechs / vg's though =P

 

its a screenshot of a MERCENARY

 

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

here is a better res pic, for those who couldnt see the blatantly obvious fact that i was playing a Merc

http://imageshack.us/f/16/swtor2012123101064563.png/

Edited January 30, 2013 by cashogy_reborn

[LastWizard]

Everybody here has made it clear....I wonder why there are plenty of good Pt's and very few assassins? Hmmm

[RankorSSGS]

@ ArchangelLBC

 

First off thanks to you as well for keeping up the actual useful conversation, rather than the non-useful.

 

I pretty much agree with you on everything there, but I do still have to maintain that for its burst phase, the Infil hybrid in question, 0/27/14, actually requires absolutely zero setup. I always start straight off with FiB, into Breach, into Project. That is my core burst phase, as Shadow Strike is proc-dependent, and everything else is either situational, or filler. That's it really. 3 instant abilities, in 3 GCD's, none of them at all dependent on any of the others. I find that Breach is a sufficiently powerful attack even without stacks of Exit Strategy. I do not spec into the reduced cd for Breach, so over the 15 sec cd, I usually build up 1-3 stacks. This leads to about a 4k crit, which slowly grows closer to 5k with more stacks. I still find it plenty worthwhile. I do wish we had some crit or mainstat or something in our trees to make gearing a little fairer, PT's get 15% crit to RS, their only real non-tech attack, and then if they spec 4/6/31 (which I do) they get another 6% tech crit, and a further 6% elemental crit on top of everything. I can stack full power gear on my PT and still have basically the same or more crit than my shadow

 

And I tend to avoid choosing random PT's because I find that so many are bad FOTM chasers flocking to the 4 button I win class

Edited January 30, 2013 by RankorSSGS

[iDraxter]

you didn't teach me anything. I have a guardian and a PT so I know all about the stances/cylinder restrictions.

 

But to get through an entire WZ with zero protection? Either you aren't taunting or your opponents are so aware of you taunting that they are switching to you the second you do. But considering they are punching out 600k dps, they are probably getting left well alone.

well if i didn`t teach u anything maybe some1 should teach u how to write

. I don't care if you aren't guarding people, but for crying out loud use those taunts ladies!

does this phrase not translate into "I don`t care if u aren`t putting guard on ppl(which a dps cannot do because of the cylinder/stance), but atleast use the taunts". I don`t think i read it wrong its just u that expressed urself very poorly Edited January 30, 2013 by iDraxter

[CharterMonkKent]

You know Waka you may be the absolute best assassin ever, but if you're going to be a self important douche instead of trying to contribute to the conversation then I think the time and energy you spend typing your responses could be better spent *********** yourself

 

he isn't (not that it would matter). either way, video game arrogance is hilarious to read. i hope he continues

[Molokia]

its a screenshot of a MERCENARY

 

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

here is a better res pic, for those who couldnt see the blatantly obvious fact that i was playing a Merc

http://imageshack.us/f/16/swtor2012123101064563.png/

 

 

I know this, I was making the statement towards VG'S / PT'S that don't taunt. I've seen them do those numbers or around them with no taunts.... An Assault merc putting up those numbers isn't shocking.