Compromise on Smash?

[Dreadgos]

Would rather have the smash buffs swicthed to force scream so force scream would be the high hitting ability and remove the 100% crit chance. This would make it somewhat less annoying.

[Ramtar]

Exactly, it's an AoE attack it should be treated like the rest of our AoE attacks.

AoE is generally weaker than main attacks, either takes time to cast or is channeled, paints a big warning circle on the ground, doesn't root (leap root), is interruptable, actually breaks CC, and has a long cooldown.

 

Add all these to bring it back in line with the AoE of all the other classes and the problem is solved.

Sentinels and warriors are designed to be single target melee classes, leave the powerful force AoE attacks the consulars and sorcs. Make smash a weaker secondary attack to use when not using hard hitting single target lightsaber attacks.

 

Since when are Sentinels designed to be single target melee classes. They are designed for DPS: AoE (Focus) or single target (Watchman/Combat). Just like a Gunslinger, the only other Republic pure DPS class, can be: AoE (Saboteur) or single target (Sharpshooter/Dirty Fighting).

 

Each of the Sentinel trees provide a different playing style:

* Watchman (Single target DoTs)

* Combat (Single target)

* Focus (AoE)

 

We, as players, don't know what changes will happen with RotHC expansion. The devs could remove Felling Blow from the Focus Tree and rework Singularity, while active, as buff to all Focus attacks. No matter what happens people will find something to complain about the Marauder/Sentinel.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Ramtar

[DariusCalera]

Since when are Sentinels designed to be single target melee classes. They are designed for DPS: AoE (Focus) or single target (Watchman/Combat). Just like a Gunslinger, the only other Republic pure DPS class, can be: AoE (Saboteur) or single target (Sharpshooter/Dirty Fighting).

 

Each of the Sentinel trees provide a different playing style:

* Watchman (Single target DoTs)

* Combat (Single target)

* Focus (AoE)

 

We, as players, don't know what changes will happen with RotHC expansion. The devs could remove Felling Blow from the Focus Tree and rework Singularity, while active, as buff to all Focus attacks. No matter what happens people will find something to complain about the Marauder/Sentinel.

 

Generally speaking, an AOE toon actually has more than a single AOE attack. A gunny commando would be a good example of an AOE toon with Mortar Volley, Plasma Grenade, Hail of Bolts, Sticky Grenade, and Pulse Cannon.

[LastWizard]

Exactly, it's an AoE attack it should be treated like the rest of our AoE attacks.

AoE is generally weaker than main attacks, either takes time to cast or is channeled, paints a big warning circle on the ground, doesn't root (leap root), is interruptable, actually breaks CC, and has a long cooldown.

 

Add all these to bring it back in line with the AoE of all the other classes and the problem is solved.

Sentinels and warriors are designed to be single target melee classes, leave the powerful force AoE attacks the consulars and sorcs. Make smash a weaker secondary attack to use when not using hard hitting single target lightsaber attacks.

 

I think the smash should hit 3 people and damage should be reduced by 20-25% if it were at the 4 stacks of singularity. Nothing major really.

[NathanielStarr]

Ok don't change them, but do not give Sith Warriors/Jedi Knights anything for the 5 levels they are adding, not even 5 skill points for their talent trees (can you imagine giving them 5 more points to play with?) and give everyone else an passive AOE reduction ability, plus the skill points and some other utility like tools.

[rob_y]

give everyone else an passive AOE reduction ability.

 

One you spec into, I assume. Some classes already have this, but yea - that would make a big difference. If suddenly a lot of those 7k+ smashes became 5k smashes, less people would play Focus/Rage. This would also have the nice side benefit of freeing up a lot of Guardians and Jugs to play Vigilance / Vengeance or a tank hybrid, which would generally lower everyone's TTK in warzones (which seems to be another complaint).

 

It would also be nice, since some people WOULDN'T take it, which would leave the herpaderp types free to continue smashing for the huge numbers on some people. This would encourage them to play the class, even if it's no longer the most effective use of their class.

[xxIncubixx]

Then all the sentinels will go back to combat because stacking power works the same in that spec (sorry guardians, you're screwed) and you will realize that you die 10x faster against a good combat spec sent and wish focus was left alone. I play smash for the luls of seeing 6-8k crits, aside from that, I consider the spec crap considering once I smash I'm useless. Combat has way more versatility than focus. Faster speed boost, better burst (might not be one big hit, but you'll wonder where your health went faster fighting a combat compared to fighting a focus), roots on crippling throw and master strike so you're not getting away from them and 100% armor pen for 4.5 seconds with an auto crit blade storm? Ya have fun fighting those again once everyone gets over the smash wave.

 

The only true issue with smash is that it is an aoe. There are multiple ways to fix the spec without butchering it and leaving it so guardians will remain having a good pvp dos spec (they could also fix vigilance but good luck with that). Leave it an aoe spec but make singularity a debuff instead of a buff so only the single enemy player with singularity gets the big crit while everyone else get hit for the base damage which will be around 1500-2000 damage, do what the OP says and make it a frontal cone which I like, or swap sweep to blade storm and make the spec a single target spec.

 

combat isnt AOE, smash is

[Esiqual]

A change that i would like to see is in how smash works while under the influence of any amount of stack buffs. When stacked the attack changes into a instant activated pulsing PBAOE (point blank AOE) attack that last for say 3 seconds on the spot that is attacked. All the damage then is channeled over that 3 seconds to anyone in the AOE effect. They might need to create a talent that causes the target to become slowed by a certain amount up to say 50% when all 4 stacks are activated. Obviously they can do other attacks when the pulse is occurring, it shouldn't require a channel.

 

I think the most practical change though would be to move the buff stacks to apply to bladestorm / force scream and allow them to keep the auto crit on smash / sweep. This way they can do high burst damage even without crit on that ability and it keeps everything else the same.

[Zunayson]

Make flamethrower Aoe for AP and you got a deal!

 

Making it conal would make it extremely annoying for them smashers lol!

[Smashbrother]

Its not that difficult to shft the DPS towards other attacks. The auto-crit proc from a simple force leap is the dumbest thing ive ever seen in an MMO. Imagine if i could autocrit with my ambushes everytime i get into cover! Or even better, series of shots auto crit, hell for this i would have gone entirely power + surge.

 

Right now there is only one class that can reliably hard counter smashers, and that is 35/3/3 snipers.

 

Focus spec guardians are squishy as hell. They have plenty of counters. Focus sents are harder to kill than guardians, but still have easy counters since they don't have the self heal of watchmen, or the billion roots of combat.

 

As to how to nerf focus w/o destroying it for pve. The best way is to lower auto crit to 50-60% or whatever. This should be an across the board change (bye bye combat's auto crit blade storm). There should be no auto crits in this game.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Smashbrother

[Pyrinoos]

Focus spec guardians are squishy as hell. They have plenty of counters. Focus sents are harder to kill than guardians, but still have easy counters since they don't have the self heal of watchmen, or the billion roots of combat.

 

As to how to nerf focus w/o destroying it for pve. The best way is to lower auto crit to 50-60% or whatever. This should be an across the board change (bye bye combat's auto crit blade storm). There should be no auto crits in this game.

 

Yea so bye bye explosive fuel, bye bye recklessness, bye bye energize, bye bye savagery, bye bye charged gauntlets...

 

Well u might like this but drastically lowing ttk also affects balance. What happens when people are criting a lot less, and there is much less burst. Healing becomes kingly again. Then everyone will cry for a healer nerf....

 

Personally, i say give vengeance some improvements, more burst , armor pen and a surge multiplier, and more people will play it reducing the issue of smashers in the process.

[NoTomorrow]

You do understand that if they go with universal crit nerf, not just smash, they will need to nerf healing massively as well. Right now one single kolto injection + surgical probe can easily deliver 10000 hp. Edited January 20, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[Smashbrother]

Yea so bye bye explosive fuel, bye bye recklessness, bye bye energize, bye bye savagery, bye bye charged gauntlets...

 

Well u might like this but drastically lowing ttk also affects balance. What happens when people are criting a lot less, and there is much less burst. Healing becomes kingly again. Then everyone will cry for a healer nerf....

 

Personally, i say give vengeance some improvements, more burst , armor pen and a surge multiplier, and more people will play it reducing the issue of smashers in the process.

 

You mean INCREASING TTK. Lowering means people are dying faster.

 

And this change wouldn't affect TTK drastically.

[Smashbrother]

You do understand that if they go with universal crit nerf, not just smash, they will need to nerf healing massively as well. Right now one single kolto injection + surgical probe can easily deliver 10000 hp.

 

It's only a nerf to those talents that give 100% crit so those classes will need to gear for crit also. It wouldn't drastically make healers OP.

 

Scoundrel healers being too good is a scoundrel problem, not a healer problem. Sages and commandos aren't anywhere that good.

[Xeraz]

There can be no compromise.

[foxmob]

the fact that certain classes can benefit by completely ignoring what are supposed to be core stats, imo, leads to a lot of the unruly numbers we're seeing. smashers don't need crit. pt's don't need accuracy. healers, for the most part, don't need alacrity (or very much of it). iunno.

 

the most obvious immediate solution is don't make it so easy to build singularity and don't let sages stun bubble everyone in the raid.

[Darth-Rammstein]

If they can smash scoundrels and op's to all hell i say they take a BIG bat to these smash monkeys,people were crying like a river with OP's Scoundrels til they nerfed them to hell and these smash monkeys want a compromise? like hell lol,what goes around comes around.

 

scoundrels/ops still have the best healing tree in pvp...what will guardian/juggs have after they are nerfed? nothing.

[DariusCalera]

So, just out of curiosity, what is it about the Vigilance/Vengeance trees that make them subpar in PvP?

[HBMalachorfive]

Nothing as stated before its a L2P issue. If people are complaining about the Vengance tree then they really need to go back and re-roll because seriously *facepalm*...Vengance tree is the best hard counter to a Carnage Mara. But people will still bitterly complain because they think every class is busted in one way or another except that Mara/Sents are Op'd and commando's are underpowered.

[Smashbrother]

So, just out of curiosity, what is it about the Vigilance/Vengeance trees that make them subpar in PvP?

 

They're the only dps tree with no surge talents. They're 31 talent point is laughable and sucks ***. They're burst is based on master strike procs, but they have no root talents to hold people in place for those MS (unlike carnage maras) so people can just walk away. They're supposed to be the single target dps tree, but focus does that better. Their dot talents are super lols. Finally, the tree is better for tanking than dps which is evident by the fact all guardian tanks are vig/def hybrids.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Smashbrother

[DweezillKagemand]

lol-nah. You can take a proper nerf, as in, get nerfed into the floor, several patches in a row, like Operatives.

[DweezillKagemand]

scoundrels/ops still have the best healing tree in pvp...what will guardian/juggs have after they are nerfed? nothing.

 

Tank. We have to adapt to a different gameplay style by going healer. You can too.

Edited January 20, 2013 by DweezillKagemand

[Wainamoinen]

Was said already, but here's another vote. The obvious thing to do is remove autocrit from Smash.

 

It would still be very powerful, all the spec's other killer attacks like Force Scream, Master Strike and Vicious Throw will be as strong as they were. Rage/Focus would still be a viable DPS spec, it simply wouldn't be the ridiculously OP easymode choice.

 

Sure, other classes have abilities that can be set up to autocrit. But, crucially, those are harder to set up, longer cd, and/or only hit one target. Which is why they aren't as game-breakingly OP as Smash, and Smash can have its autocrit removed while leaving them.

[kamerence]

I can't get over at how laughable the comments are from other smashers saying the spec is useless once you smash. Have any of you ever logged a warzone? I believe you d be amazed at how much damage you end up doing with force exhaustion/force crush, and bladestorm/force scream. Don't get me wrong smash will be first, but it won't be by as large of an amount as you think. I hate saying this because I actually LOVE the vigilance/veangence playstyle, but even if smashed is nerfed you'll probably still come out on top being a pure focus/rage spec. In all honestly, lets just hope BW buffs vigilance/veangence for PvP somehow...But that'd probably be too difficult because its in a really good spot for pve. Edited January 20, 2013 by kamerence

[Pyrinoos]

You mean INCREASING TTK. Lowering means people are dying faster.

 

And this change wouldn't affect TTK drastically.

 

Yea sorry i meant increasing...

 

And taking all auto crit abilities out of the game would drastically change the current meta-game. It takes burst to down a good healer, especially with a good tank guarding. Burst takes large damaging attacks. Removing all auto-crits from every spec would reduce burst, therefore good healers would die much much less.

 

My suggestion for rage, take the armor pen from rage and give it to vengeance instead and replace the bleed on force scream in vengeance with a 30 surge talent on all melee abilities. Oh and fix shatter to apply it's damage over 9 secs instead of 12. Also consider reducing the force damage bonus granted rage from the vengeance tree from 6 to 3 percent.