Reduce the duration of singularity to 5 seconds

[SomberSoySauce]

Impact on PvE

It doesn't affect PvE (or if it does, the impact is very minor).

 

Impact on PvP

The problem with focus spec in PvP is that one cannot adopt any intentional defense against it (with the exception of shadow + resilience or sage + egress). The primary tools of other sentinel specs are susceptible to well-timed counter measures; watchman is vulnerable to cleanses and combat is crippled by well-timed stuns/CDs. Smash spec, on the other hand, can wait out the entire duration of a stun and still have a massive auto-crit at the ready. Worse, after the stun wears off, leap and zealous leap are off CD, allowing the smasher to snare his target. There should be analogous counter measures against focus spec. This raises the overall skill level of PvP since players who know they face a smasher can look for the singularity buff and take appropriate actions against it.

 

Also, please implement some semblance of a matchmaking system in PvP. Let the pre-mades beat each other into pulp rather than matching them against a bunch of players who can't even move and attack at the same time. I've been in matches where the damage difference between the two teams needs to be measured on a logarithmic scale. This is sadly not hyperbole.

[rsuhandy]

This is a great idea.

This would not change the way focus/rage is played in PVE.

But it would give other classes a viable defense against rage/focus.

[akabane_k]

You can already cleanse force crush and not stand on top of your teamates to counter smash. Proper positioning and cleansing are more skillful than "its a smash mara, stun".

 

Not to mention, giving every other class a hard counter to your main ability generally doesn't work well(ask full healing sorcs pre-2.0). Even with smash, they are behind carnage, mm, decep, lightning and probably arsenal in terms of burst, and on the low end in terms of sustained. The only unique thing they have is aoe from smash. Without it, they have vicious slash, force scream, obilterate and autoattack. If they are stunned and cleansed correctly. this is about as useful as a lvl 20 character.

[SomberSoySauce]

"Not to mention, giving every other class a hard counter to your main ability generally doesn't work well(ask full healing sorcs pre-2.0)."

But there are hard counters to the main abilities of both watchman and combat spec, and they are absolutely crippling. For instance, well-timed stuns against a combat sentinel reduces that sentinel's dps by maybe 40%. Why does smash spec get a free pass?

 

"You can already cleanse force crush"

Glad you brought this up, because the recent 2.0 changes to focus spec *weaken* your argument. Whereas pre-2.0, providing classes with an easy way to eliminate singularity might have made focus spec about as useful as watchman spec for PvP, i.e. pretty much not useful at all, the post 2.0 boost to surge for focus spec, combined with the relative decrease in importance of singularity (balanced by the increased single-target capability) means weakening singularity is now a comparatively less severe balancing action. And in any case, force crush is one of two ways to generate singularity. Are you suggesting a counter to both methods of generating singularity be preferable?

 

"Even with smash, they are behind carnage, mm, decep, lightning and probably arsenal in terms of burst, and on the low end in terms of sustained."

This is mostly false. Have you seen the numbers in every PvP scoreboard ever? It's not intelligible to make arguments about abstract notions like "burst" without considering counters; sure carnage can burn down a passive target faster than focus, but placed in a match, it is hard-countered by stuns, well-timed evasion (e.g. scoundrel dodge), well-timed escapes like force speed/scamper, accuracy reduction, knock backs... I could go on like this all day. Lightning is countered by *interrupts* which are available as fast as every 6 seconds. And yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, because a lightning specc'ed sorc has to be smart about snares, stuns, knockbacks and positioning to be effective. Compare this to a focus specc'ed sentinel who only has to leap into the biggest cluster of people he sees and use sweep.

 

"Proper positioning"

Firstly, focus is already almost as effective as the other two sentinel specs in 1v1 situations (again, because it does not suffer from hard counters, and also due to 2.0 improvements). So even if everyone were spread out all the time, focus would still be, if not decent, at least tolerable, partly because it is easy to play. Secondly, clustering will always happen; several PvP maps in fact encourage it (side turrets on Alderaan, pillars in Voidstar). And clustering *always* happens in teams which have a lot of melee players (digressing for a moment, my view is that focus spec makes melee-heavy party compositions comprised of non-focus-specc'ed players unviable, which in my opinion is poor design).

 

"its a smash mara, stun"

This would not be an effective way to counter focus spec, even if my proposed nerf were put into place, because poorly timed stuns would have no effect.

 

At higher levels of gameplay, focus specc'ed sentinels would then have to play more cleverly, baiting stuns, rather than leaping in blindly, assured in their knowledge that nothing anyone can do will deny them their gratification. Requiring focus-specc'ed players to bait raises, rather than lowers, the skill required from both the sentinels and the targets.

 

At casual levels of play, crummy players will still be crummy players, incapable of using their stuns at all, much less in a proactive fashion. So there, the impact is quite small.

 

So it's not as simple as you make it sound. But even if it were that simple, let's compare to the existing combat spec. Whenever I see a combat specc'ed sentinel come after me, I look for the precision slash, I stun them, and I laugh at them because all they have is blade rush (doesn't do any more damage than slash), blade storm, auto-attack and master strike. That looks suspiciously like your list, "vicious slash, force scream, obilterate and autoattack", except with one less gap closer (though to be fair, combat can spec into an extra immobilize). So what, it's okay that combat is easy to tear down (despite being more difficult to play), but leave focus alone?

Edited June 3, 2013 by SomberSoySauce

[rsuhandy]

I feel like this "nerf" will only affect the lesser skilled players.

Those who play focus/rage well will not be affected that greatly in PVP.

PVE would not be affect at all.

[Helmholtzz]

Agree with the original poster. Very nice idea.

[akabane_k]

"Not to mention, giving every other class a hard counter to your main ability generally doesn't work well(ask full healing sorcs pre-2.0)."

But there are hard counters to the main abilities of both watchman and combat spec, and they are absolutely crippling. For instance, well-timed stuns against a combat sentinel reduces that sentinel's dps by maybe 40%. Why does smash spec get a free pass?

 

"You can already cleanse force crush"

Glad you brought this up, because the recent 2.0 changes to focus spec *weaken* your argument. Whereas pre-2.0, providing classes with an easy way to eliminate singularity might have made focus spec about as useful as watchman spec for PvP, i.e. pretty much not useful at all, the post 2.0 boost to surge for focus spec, combined with the relative decrease in importance of singularity (balanced by the increased single-target capability) means weakening singularity is now a comparatively less severe balancing action. And in any case, force crush is one of two ways to generate singularity. Are you suggesting a counter to both methods of generating singularity be preferable?

 

"Even with smash, they are behind carnage, mm, decep, lightning and probably arsenal in terms of burst, and on the low end in terms of sustained."

This is mostly false. Have you seen the numbers in every PvP scoreboard ever? It's not intelligible to make arguments about abstract notions like "burst" without considering counters; sure carnage can burn down a passive target faster than focus, but placed in a match, it is hard-countered by stuns, well-timed evasion (e.g. scoundrel dodge), well-timed escapes like force speed/scamper, accuracy reduction, knock backs... I could go on like this all day. Lightning is countered by *interrupts* which are available as fast as every 6 seconds. And yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, because a lightning specc'ed sorc has to be smart about snares, stuns, knockbacks and positioning to be effective. Compare this to a focus specc'ed sentinel who only has to leap into the biggest cluster of people he sees and use sweep.

 

"Proper positioning"

Firstly, focus is already almost as effective as the other two sentinel specs in 1v1 situations (again, because it does not suffer from hard counters, and also due to 2.0 improvements). So even if everyone were spread out all the time, focus would still be, if not decent, at least tolerable, partly because it is easy to play. Secondly, clustering will always happen; several PvP maps in fact encourage it (side turrets on Alderaan, pillars in Voidstar). And clustering *always* happens in teams which have a lot of melee players (digressing for a moment, my view is that focus spec makes melee-heavy party compositions comprised of non-focus-specc'ed players unviable, which in my opinion is poor design).

 

"its a smash mara, stun"

This would not be an effective way to counter focus spec, even if my proposed nerf were put into place, because poorly timed stuns would have no effect.

 

At higher levels of gameplay, focus specc'ed sentinels would then have to play more cleverly, baiting stuns, rather than leaping in blindly, assured in their knowledge that nothing anyone can do will deny them their gratification. Requiring focus-specc'ed players to bait raises, rather than lowers, the skill required from both the sentinels and the targets.

 

At casual levels of play, crummy players will still be crummy players, incapable of using their stuns at all, much less in a proactive fashion. So there, the impact is quite small.

 

So it's not as simple as you make it sound. But even if it were that simple, let's compare to the existing combat spec. Whenever I see a combat specc'ed sentinel come after me, I look for the precision slash, I stun them, and I laugh at them because all they have is blade rush (doesn't do any more damage than slash), blade storm, auto-attack and master strike. That looks suspiciously like your list, "vicious slash, force scream, obilterate and autoattack", except with one less gap closer (though to be fair, combat can spec into an extra immobilize). So what, it's okay that combat is easy to tear down (despite being more difficult to play), but leave focus alone?

 

Your mistake is assuming the other 2 mara specs are well balanced for pvp, anni as you said is near useless. Carnage is only taken because of the 80% pred, its offensive abilities are easy countered, making it a burst class which never gets a chance to burst, essentially a deception sin without stealth or any stuns. Even lightning can get interrupt immunity pretty often, as well as multiple ways to keep melee off them. Not to mention they are ranged, so other ranged can't stun them unless they run up close. So they have ways to prevent being interrupted, does focus have some ability(like force shroud) to prevent it from being stunned?

 

If you regard scoreboard as a way to balance, no offense but l2p. You can put up huge numbers just by tab dotting or spamming aoe that never kills anyone. If there is a healer or 2 on the other team, they can just aoe heal after the smash and then the smash does good numbers on a scoreboard but effectively accomplished nothing.

 

And if the buff only lasts 5 secs how are you going to "bait", jump in without the buff? People will just do the same thing they do to carnage and wait for the buff to appear before stunning.

 

But if you insist on making every mara spec hard countered, why dont we extend it? All interrupts have 6 sec cd and 35 meter range, everyone gets the grenade that knocks snipers out of cover, everyone can see stealth from 30 m away, stuns go through force shroud.