Changes coming in 2.0 which won't be tested.

[ArchangelLBC]

I definitely have a team that supports me, brainstorms with me, and tests with me, but I do all of the design, implementation, and balance for all of the classes by myself. It is a daunting task.

 

The following changes are going out in 2.0 and won't be making it onto PTS.

 

Bounty Hunter

Mercenary

-Electro Net: This ability now applies its effects instantly instead of waiting for a projectile to finish traveling.

 

Arsenal:

-Tracer Missile: The Heat Signature applied by Tracer Missile now lasts 45 seconds. In addition, the Heat Signature effect now reduces armor by 20% and no longer stacks. Furthermore, this ability now fires a faster-moving projectile.

-Heatseeker Missiles: This ability now deals 25% additional damage if the target is affected by your Heat Signature. In addition, this ability now fires a slightly slower-moving projectile, ensuring that the Heat Signature effect-checking will work properly if fired off immediately after a Tracer Missile.

-Light 'Em Up: No longer affects Heat Signatures applied by Tracer Missile.

 

Trooper

Commando

-Electro Net: This ability now applies its effects instantly instead of waiting for a projectile to finish traveling.

 

Gunnery:

-Grav Round: The Gravity Vortex applied by Grav Round now lasts 45 seconds. In addition, the Gravity Vortex effect now reduces armor by 20% and no longer stacks. Furthermore, this ability now fires a faster-moving projectile.

-Demolition Round: This ability now deals 25% additional damage if the target is affected by your Gravity Vortex. In addition, this ability now fires a slightly slower-moving projectile, ensuring that the Gravity Vortex effect-checking will work properly if fired off immediately after a Grav Round.

-Gravity Surge: No longer affects Gravity Vortices applied by Grav Round.

 

 

Thoughts: Nice small QoL buff in PVE, and even in PVP there are some not total crap benefits. Doubt it will make us ranked viable, but I can't really see any downside, so that's a nice change.

 

Any changes that aren't effective nerfs is a win for us.

[DariusCalera]

So, if I am reading that right, we are applying a full debuff with 1 Grav Round correct?

[Tyious]

Yup, but we'll be still spamming it anyway. I was so wishing for a new rotation for gunnery

[JimmyTheCannon]

This is a change that has been suggested a lot on the PTS, so it's good to see they're paying attention. It'll help. I was hoping for more, though.

 

That said, I'm glad they're doing this.

[Lalainnia]

Nothing for medics......

[Bleeters]

Nice, if nothing that I'm going to jump around clicking my heels together in unrestrained glee over. Edited March 26, 2013 by Bleeters

[Gyronamics]

Grav then instantly follow with a fully buffed Demo....

 

Follow up with a 70% snare FA, CoF or not, Grav, Grav and HiB....

 

 

 

Assault is looking less appealing with every patch coming out.

 

The advantage of Assault over Gunnery was being able to burst with very little set up and do decent mobile damage.

 

All 2.0 has done for Assault over Gunnery is to make it more of a caster and weaken its mobile damage.

 

I will justify that by mentioning:

 

15s down to 12s CD on Full Auto

Hyper Barrels increase damage of Full Auto, Charged Bolts and HiB by 6%

Plasma Cell changed from giving 3% tech crit to 6% ranged crit

Plasma Cell DoT halved in damage

Assault Plastique changed to a rough ratio of 5:4 kinetic burst:elemental dot which is over 12s

 

DoT damage as a percentage of all damage has been reduced from ~35% to ~25% with ranged attacks increasing accordingly.

 

Assault Plastique was a good hard hitting attack in its own right, stick it on someone and you'd have a reasonable shot at blowing off 4k health which a target can't do much about.

 

Now it's a variant of Incendiary Round. Does a bit of front loaded damage but is actually there to lay a very long and weak DoT attack to buff ranged attacks.

 

So more casting and casting issues.

 

Sounds increasingly like that other spec except their buffs will last 45s and can't be cleansed. They also have this root which is worth a dam on their proc channel attack...

Edited March 26, 2013 by Gyronamics

[skygon]

This is a huge change for us in pvp, finally some love for gunnery.

[ChicagoBearsFan]

What stands out to me is that there is only ONE person working on design, implementation and balance of the classes. C'mon BW! Get this dude some help!

[Gyronamics]

He didn't say what he'd be changing gravity surge to though since this is now a useless talent.

 

Gravity Surge won't do anything to Gravity Vortex stacks because stacks won't exist anymore.

 

Instead Gravity Vortex will be a single, non-stacking 20% armour debuff that lasts for 45s and instantly gives a 25% buff to Demo round when applied.

 

Gravity Surge will continue to add extra stacks of Charged Barrel and Charged Barrier.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Gyronamics

[ArchangelLBC]

This is his fulltime job, and many of the theorycrafters who do this as a hobby seem to understand class interactions and balance better than he does. So, yeah, no slack. Also I interpreted his comment as yes there is a team involved in combat design, but he has taken it upon himself to micromanage the whole thing.

 

Mainly what I take away from it is this guy is a massive douche.

 

So the change to rotation will be GR->DR->GR->-GR>HiB and insert CoFs as they come up? Frontloads our dmg just a bit which is nice. He didn't say what he'd be changing gravity surge to though since this is now a useless talent. I'm thinking they're going to change mechanics so that GR and FA have a 25% chance to self-interrupt and that you need to put a point into this 'new skill' to prevent that.

 

If you think I'm joking, remember we now have a skill that allows us the lovely ability to drop our cast time for GR back down to 1.5, where it was before they hit us with a nerf bat...again.

 

Gravity Surge there to get double stacks of charged barrel/barrier. I'm more upset over Special Munitions being changed from a 1 point skill to a 3 point skill which does less (reduces ammo of Hib by 6 instead of 8, and lowers cost of Grav Round back to what it already is on live).

 

Agree with everything else you said though.

[SafeJungleFever]

Yeah I don't know why they feel the need to put in useless talents to steal skill points in our tree. First muzzle fluting, and now Special Munitions. On the other hand, if they left the cost of grav round alone at 16, but allowed it to decrease the cost of grav round by 3 down to 13 that might go a long way to alleviate our ammo issues.

[nbayer]

...Mainly what I take away from it is this guy is a massive douche...

 

Probably not exactly fair, if the guy spends all day working on commando stuff he's probably got a pretty good grip on it. Balance needs to be taken in small steps, and I think this is a step in the right direction. Plus it's easy to be sure your right when it doesn't matter, he on the other hand will have every decision dissected by thousands of people.

[SafeJungleFever]

The guy's had almost exactly a year now. it's fair. We haven't even seen small stepwise improvements. When we've gotten steps, they've been at best sideways. And sometimes they've just been him turning in a circle saying 'tada' and not really changing anything at all.

[ArchangelLBC]

Probably not exactly fair, if the guy spends all day working on commando stuff he's probably got a pretty good grip on it. Balance needs to be taken in small steps, and I think this is a step in the right direction. Plus it's easy to be sure your right when it doesn't matter, he on the other hand will have every decision dissected by thousands of people.

 

Actually I'm sure half the problem is he DOESN'T spend all day working on commando stuff. Given the balance changes that we've had and their pace, I'd say he spends very LITTLE time on commando stuff, which would be the problem.

[idnewton]

Nothing for medics......

 

I'm not 100% sure but I think Eric was only mentioning the DPS changes. All we can do is hope... Commando Heals is still on the low end. Obviously there will always be a worst and a best healer, but this is still lower than it should be. Give us energy pool regen when our default healy-stream has critical hits, kinda like the scoundrel's passive.

[ArchangelLBC]

I'm not 100% sure but I think Eric was only mentioning the DPS changes. All we can do is hope... Commando Heals is still on the low end. Obviously there will always be a worst and a best healer, but this is still lower than it should be. Give us energy pool regen when our default healy-stream has critical hits, kinda like the scoundrel's passive.

 

Man good luck to you on that =/

 

I mean I'm hoping you guys get some love too, but obviously the devs behavior in the past leaves me kinda pessimistic where they're concerned. Even the DPS changes don't really do a lot, at least at face value, to address the concerns we had.

 

Still, maybe this is a new era! Unless they announce specific changes though I wouldn't hold your breath. And I'd spend the interim bugging them nonstop for those changes. Squeaky wheel gets the grease over at BW it seems =/

[idnewton]

Man good luck to you on that =/

 

I mean I'm hoping you guys get some love too, but obviously the devs behavior in the past leaves me kinda pessimistic where they're concerned. Even the DPS changes don't really do a lot, at least at face value, to address the concerns we had.

 

Still, maybe this is a new era! Unless they announce specific changes though I wouldn't hold your breath. And I'd spend the interim bugging them nonstop for those changes. Squeaky wheel gets the grease over at BW it seems =/

 

Sigh... I don't presume to understand Bioware logic. A lot of the time there's a logical explaination for what they do, but other times they'll leave classes (both overpowered and underpowered) untouched for months. All we can do is hope that isn't the case this time.

[ArchangelLBC]

Sigh... I don't presume to understand Bioware logic. A lot of the time there's a logical explaination for what they do, but other times they'll leave classes (both overpowered and underpowered) untouched for months. All we can do is hope that isn't the case this time.

 

Hope for the best, expect the worse has become my policy with BW. I was half expecting the gunnery changes to be straight up nerfs =/

 

Like I said though definitely hope you guys get some love.

[HybridCode]

I know how I'm changing my game with this. Every time I cast a new grav round I will be switching targets so errbody has an armor debuff. Slingers have this ability too but the difference between them using it and us is that we rely on this move as a base for all of our dmg. And since it lasts 45 secs, if we ever have our mobility probs fixed, this class actually has something useful to bring to rateds. Edited March 26, 2013 by HybridCode

[idnewton]

I know how I'm changing my game with this. Every time I cast a new grav round I will be switching targets so errbody has an armor debuff. Slingers have this ability too but the difference between them using it and us is that we rely on this move as a base for all of our dmg. And since it lasts 45 secs, if we ever have our mobility probs fixed, this class actually has something useful to bring to rateds.

 

From what I've read, the only armor debuff which everyone benefits from is the sniper one. All the others are personal (for example, if you debuff everyone's armor in pvp, only you get the effect of their reduced armor).

 

If not, you make a very good point.

[ArchangelLBC]

Pretty sure that's not true. At least on live it isn't true. All the armor debuffs work the same in that regard. It's the armor pen from AP cell that is only for us I think.

[HybridCode]

From what I've read, the only armor debuff which everyone benefits from is the sniper one. All the others are personal (for example, if you debuff everyone's armor in pvp, only you get the effect of their reduced armor).

 

If not, you make a very good point.

 

No that's no the case at all. It benefits errbody. The prob is that you have to cast so much to get there right now. When this happens it will offer team utility.

[JimmyTheCannon]

From what I've read, the only armor debuff which everyone benefits from is the sniper one. All the others are personal (for example, if you debuff everyone's armor in pvp, only you get the effect of their reduced armor).

 

If not, you make a very good point.

 

Not true. However, some skills have additional benefits that they *only* get from your armor reduction.

 

If you put Grav Round on a target, everyone will benefit from the armor reduction. However, other Gunnery Commandos won't get increased damage on their Demo Round from that Gravity Vortex; only you will. Similarly, a Juggernaut's Sundering Assault puts an armor debuff that everyone benefits from, but their Crushing Blow, which hits additional targets if the primary target has Sunder on it, will only benefit from that individual Juggernaut's Sunder, not a different Juggernaut's.

 

Additionally, armor debuffs don't stack; you'll gain the benefit of the highest armor debuff on the target regardless of whether it's yours or not.

 

With this change, all 3 armor debuffs are exactly the same as far as the amount of armor reduction they apply, so that much isn't an issue. Previously, if you had two Heat Signature stacks from a single Tracer Missile on a target, and a Sniper had his Shatter Shot on the same target, you'd get the 20% armor pen but still only get 10% bonus to Heat Seeker Missile.

[SafeJungleFever]

The devs' behavior is actually very easy to understand if you recognize that they are all adolescents and behave as such. Who gets buffed, who gets nerfed, and who gets no attention paid to them at all as they slowly die on the vine (cough commando heals and commando PVP) is based almost entirely on which classes THEY play, which classes THEY favor, and which ones they hate rolling against. Yes they do make some changes to other classes because they're not ENTIRELY self-destructive, but I think we can easily guess the /played time by AC and skill tree simply by playing each of these classes.