what are the 3 changes you need to see in the Merc class?

[Phrase]

 

...I would find it a lot more useful if the HoT would stick to the targets it hits...

 

 

I could see changing Kolto Pods to add this effect to Residue, i.e. "Kolto Residue heals affected allies for (AbilityHeal) over 3 secs."

[PerinnAybara]

They would nerf the output somehow to compensate. Also the three percent healing output would matter more to us if they didn't balance our heals to include them.

 

The way I look at it the developers will ask its to sacrifice something to get any buffs. so instead of telling only what we want, we need to tell them what we would give up.

 

Our we need our suggestions to have explanations addressing their concerns of keeping the status quo.

[Phrase]

They would nerf the output somehow to compensate. Also the three percent healing output would matter more to us if they didn't balance our heals to include them.

 

The way I look at it the developers will ask its to sacrifice something to get any buffs. so instead of telling only what we want, we need to tell them what we would give up.

 

Our we need our suggestions to have explanations addressing their concerns of keeping the status quo.

 

With all respect (and I'm not being facetious; a great many of your posts demonstrate your clear understanding of the class), if our goal becomes to maintain the status quo, why make suggestions at all?

 

As an aside, I think our proposed suggestions and feedback will most likely be moot, since it seems from the Sniper responses that we'll most likely hear something like this:

 

"Yes we understand your concerns with (issue 1), but we feel..."

 

"Yes we understand your concerns with (issue 2), but our metrics show..."

 

"Yes we understand your concerns with (issue 3) and it's possible we might tweak it."

 

So expecting any action on any suggestion, regardless of how it's phrased, is wishful thinking at best.

[PerinnAybara]

I didn't mean status quo in our perspective I mean we need to keep pve/pvp status quo.

 

They do not want to increase our damage output, they don't want to reduce the cooldowns we have without weakening them or creating special limits.

 

What we can suggest are changes that do not change the "balance" they set. For instance, death from above does a certain amount of damage in a 3 second channel. We could ask for it to be more front loaded for instance, so that the first tick does 50% of the damage, and the second and third do 25% 25% respectively. Changes like that they'd probably be okay with.

 

Just look at their design philosophy, if they give us something, root on rocket punch, they'll take away something, the knockback. We have to effectively tell them what we'd give up, or what we'd ask them to change that won't change our pve output, but make our damage more effective.

 

For instance, we could state how it's not fair that all our Aoe abilities, either are channeled, time delayed, or cast. Meaning we have a much harder time landing it on several people then say a Sorcerer's instant deathfield or a smash. We would like a less reactive and more upfront ability to deal aoe that isn't susceptible to interrupts.

 

Or there is Kolto Shell. They won't let us as is apply it to everyone since it lasts 5 minutes. But we could ask them to change it to a rolling hot, + 5 charges that last for say 30 seconds. That sort of change would make it more rotationally used in say keeping up a tank, and would lower the power to let us use it on multiple people. Although this would require they redesign the skill tree so the possibility of a change like this is iffy.

 

Or we could ask for small quality of life changes for certain abilities, or unique situations under certain procs. Things like this will let us have "exploitable advantages" that on paper will be fine. Things like how the lethality hybrid out dps's the full lethality because use of explosive charge and orbital, but the developers don't balance based on aoe abilities as single target (because it's not their design philosophy). In other words we have to sneak in abilities that we can abuse to make us stronger that they wouldn't normally think would be used in such a rotation.

 

We're not going to get an execute, but we could ask for say more reliability on our damage. Perhaps rebalance heatseekers to always crit when our grav buff is on,, but remove or reduce the damage buff done due to said grav round (no more 25% damage buff). This would let us hit tanks hard (bypass shield/absorb) something that now affects the ability that didn't before 2.0, and lower our reliance on RNG. Of course the developers only look at first order consequences, so the bypass shield/absorb part of this feature would be completely ignored. It would lower our surprised burst to give us consistent on demand burst.

 

Or things that effects pvp balance but not pve. We could state that Unload is critical to our damage output, but often times the person we unload on will immediately turn and interrupt us with a leap, thus lowering the effectiveness of the ability in PVP. It's a design flaw in our 2 point talent. We don't mind being ranged interrupted by other ranged classes, or by a melee interrupt, but considering an operative or sniper can hit people with pivotal abilities like snipe, shouldn't we be able to get the full channel off? Would the balance of the game be too disturbed if they added the hinder effect to Unload and our Overload?

 

We can ask why Snipers are the only class to be able to take another sniper out of cover. Isn't that a design flaw that the only ranged weakness to another sniper is a sniper? Is it oversight that they gave snipers the ability because the other classes once had a range stun while snipers only had a 35 meter aoe ranged mez? Please share

"distraction" among the other ranged classes to amend for the nerf to ranged stuns. Thus removing inadvertent advantage and restoring some of the intended balance of the original classes.

 

These are just some of my thoughts.

[PerinnAybara]

Also don't worry about them reading or discussion in how to trick them into giving us an over powered ability. They read only a few threads, and never really in the class discussion. Hence why I haven't been banned yet.

 

It's also why I encourage people to report my posts, that way to increase the likelihood that they are actually read by someone.

Edited August 11, 2013 by PerinnAybara

[AMightyKnight]

Dont bother. If they would really care one of the developers would invest an hour or two to read this thread or some other on the first page of this subforum. Or they could play the class instead of looking at unrealistic metrics. Its really not that hard to understand what this class needs.

But this three questions representative thing isn’t about that at all. They just want to maintain the illusion that anyone works on the classes at this point. I mean, you do realize that they didn’t touch most classes since 2.0 except for minor bug fixes? That apart from one (!) chance to Saboteur, they last worked on the classes for 2.2 or rather 2.1.1? That was over two months ago and as things are now, with this question thing going on, it will be at best December if not 2014 before we see any further important changes.

If they would really care and had the ressources they would look at the classes at a one week / one class basis. You cant tell me some minor changes cant be implemented within minutes or hours tops.

So what I mean, don’t bother worrying about what we might or might not get. Chances are we wont get anything at all. So ask away, at least make them admit that our class really is behind in almost every aspect and they don’t care.

[Webblelord]

I keep seeing some bad ideas on this thread that are worrysome.

 

First, make heatseeker an execution move? That is just dumb. We already spam Tracer Missile 75% of the time. If you take away another move we would look like a bunch of tards. Our rotation is already really boring.

 

Fusion Missle cooldown complaints? What would be the point of it having a low cooldown considering how reliant the move is on TSO? It might as well have a longer cooldown since it would not change a thing.

 

Finally, we have really good dps, plus utility that other classes severly lack. I.E Heals, AED and Cure. Those alone make a merc dps important on healing intensive fights. Not to mention added survivability.

 

I would like to see two things. Pyro needs to be more useful all around. Snipers have multiple viable specs including a hybrid. We have missiles... And more missiles. Did I mention Missiles? No flexability with speccing. Aresenal or ****. Lastly the Arsenal rotation leaves me wanting something more dynamic. When RS and HSM are on CD we pretty much wait for a barrage proc from TM.

 

Oh and I still have not figured out why we have powershot. Does anyone use that?

[AMightyKnight]

I

Finally, we have really good dps, plus utility that other classes severly lack. I.E Heals, AED and Cure. Those alone make a merc dps important on healing intensive fights. Not to mention added survivability.

[/Quote] Really good dps? Did you look at the 2.0+ Nightmare Raid Parse rank sheet thread by any chance? The very best Commando/Mercenary players are far way behind, 200 dps and more even if we exclude Gunslingers/Snipers. Thats not acceptable at all.

All utility in the world doesnt give us a leg to stand on when it comes to doing Nightmare content. You have to turn in the dps numbers before you can think about utility and we are barely able to do that. Currently there is no justification at all for bringing along a Merc instead of a Sniper or a Marauder.

DPS classes are not for healing. If you need a Merc DPS to help out in healing intensive fight, there is something wrong with your healers, tanks or movement/tactic in general. Simple thing is, we just cannot afford to use many utilities since our dps suffers with every gdc we use to do other things.

 

Honestly, at this point i'd just ask them to give us a straight upt buff to Power Launcher or something.

[cashogy_reborn]

I keep seeing some bad ideas on this thread that are worrysome.

 

First, make heatseeker an execution move? That is just dumb. We already spam Tracer Missile 75% of the time. If you take away another move we would look like a bunch of tards. Our rotation is already really boring.

 

Fusion Missle cooldown complaints? What would be the point of it having a low cooldown considering how reliant the move is on TSO? It might as well have a longer cooldown since it would not change a thing.

 

Finally, we have really good dps, plus utility that other classes severly lack. I.E Heals, AED and Cure. Those alone make a merc dps important on healing intensive fights. Not to mention added survivability.

 

I would like to see two things. Pyro needs to be more useful all around. Snipers have multiple viable specs including a hybrid. We have missiles... And more missiles. Did I mention Missiles? No flexability with speccing. Aresenal or ****. Lastly the Arsenal rotation leaves me wanting something more dynamic. When RS and HSM are on CD we pretty much wait for a barrage proc from TM.

 

Oh and I still have not figured out why we have powershot. Does anyone use that?

 

We have very little reliable DPS output. An autocrit on <30% targets for HSM would give us more reliable damage output, as well as some finishing power (something almost all other DPS classes have). And if you are using Tracer Missile that often, youre doing it wrong. No one is asking to make HSM an execute exclusively; just an auto-crit on targets <30% health.

 

Fusion Missile's heat cost is too high in comparison to what it does. We should not be reliant on using it in tandem with TSO just to get it off, which is most often the case. Because of that, it basically limits FM to a 2m (90s for Pyro) cooldown, which sucks.

 

Power Shot is to Pyro as Tracer Missile is to Arsenal. It would be nice to see it given a broader function for the whole class tho. Something like a ranged root or a slow with an internal cooldown.

[midianlord]

[...]

 

Oh and I still have not figured out why we have powershot. Does anyone use that?

 

For Arsen:

 

Don't forget that PowerShot has the same chance to proc' Barrage as TM, same cast-time, same heat-cost, and does more or less the same damage (although it's "white," unlike TM).

 

Also --PvP perspective 'cuz it's me-- it can be quite useful as a "fake-cast" that can trick people into blowing their interrupt CD

 

PyroTech:

 

45% Chance to reset Railshot and make it heat-free. Think of it kinda like the Pyrotech version of Barrage, which along with Unload (75% chance to reset RS + heat-free RS) is pretty much the linchpin of that tree's heavy DPS once you get your target burning with any of its fire-effects.

 

It's the other fundamental problem of this class --in addition to lack of range-control and vulnerability to interrupts:

 

We're too dependent on chance-based proc's, most of which are tied to only one or at most two "linch-pin" abilities, all of which are cast/channeled, and very easily interruptable.

 

We need:

 

1) Proper range-dictation/control and/or gap-creator. (<--- This would solve soooooo many problems just by itself.)

2) More versatility/options in how we apply damage. Example: Missile Blast needs to be made, like, useful.

3) Either more abilities that can give us our proc's, or ideally, less proc-dependence altogether.

4) Shorter cool-downs for certain abilities. (ConcMissile, TSO, and PS especially, as well as ElectroDart)

5) Some kind of interrupt-immunity whilst "turreted-in" and casting like GS/Sniper gets. We're hardly more mobile than they are yet not that much more durable in real terms.

 

OK, that's 5, but....yeah.

Edited August 15, 2013 by midianlord

[MarkXXIV]

Sniper has 35 meter standard range, 40 meter execute, 40 meter interrupt, interrupt immunity, cc immunity, 25% ranged defense, 35% dmg reduction for first 3 attacks when In cover, best dot spec in the game, the best damage, no random procs, a dot cleanse, health/armor reduction in 1 ability, and the best cc in the game. Do not worry about merc becoming op, worry about it becoming as good a dps option as sniper in pvp. I had to quit my merc and sorc like many others and play my sniper because it is just superior to the other 2 ranged dps options. Edited August 15, 2013 by MarkXXIV

[cs_zoltan]

my 3 question would look something like this:

 

1. Are they aware that peacekeeper is the most useless talent in the whole game for both pve and pvp? and in top of that it connected to kolto shell and bodyguard so you can't skip it.

 

2. Kolto overload is the worst defensive cd for both pve and pvp if you are not a tank, are they gona do something about that?

 

3. With the PT pyro nerf they nerfed the Mercenery version quite hard as well, and they were in a very bad position to begin with, this spec is a joke now, will we see any changes to this tree to make it a viable (god forbid powerfull) spec?

[ArchangelLBC]

I still think our PVE question should be on how tight ammo management is in Gunnery/Arsenal and CM/Bodyguard compared to similar specs in the game. The fact that old 4 piece is as good as new 4 piece when you're losing 73 aim (accounting for 14% boost to aim from talent and sorc/sage buff) just points a huge glaring finger at the problem.

 

Our PVP question should be about utility.

 

Our wildcard question should be about the plethora of abilities and forced talents (Peacekeeper/Frontline medic the most obvious of the forced talents) whose usefulness is simply all out of proportion with their cost in terms of ammo/heat (PG/FM) cooldown (TSO/RP and TO/Power Surge), or talent point expenditure (Peacekeeper/Frontline Medic and Upgraded Arsenal/Special Munitions).

 

Now you'll notice I've left Assault/Pyro out of the mix. There are two reasons.

 

1) I feel we should play to our strengths. Fact is the majority of Merc/Commandos are either speccing Arsenal/Gunnery or are healing in Body Guard/Combat Medic. The issues for these specs also overlap quite a bit allowing us to meaningfully address two specs at once. Basically I'd rather address two specs that are frequently played rather than address one DPS spec that isn't played as much.

 

2) Assault/Pyro is in fact already pretty viable in PVE, even if it's not necessarily in the way the spec may be intended to be played.

 

3) Many of the issues with Assault/Pyro are the same issues that our PT/VG cousins have and this will have to be a priority for them.

[cs_zoltan]

Those are good questions as well, the last one could be about our defensive cooldowns

[ArchangelLBC]

Those are good questions as well, the last one could be about our defensive cooldowns

 

Adrenaline Rush/Kolto Overload is one of our abilities whose usefulness is all out of proportion with its actual usability due to the ridiculous cooldown. I've written large posts before detailing all examples of the abilities we have like that. There are a LOT of them. I just didn't feel like super detailing above ^^

[cs_zoltan]

Adrenaline Rush/Kolto Overload is one of our abilities whose usefulness is all out of proportion with its actual usability due to the ridiculous cooldown. I've written large posts before detailing all examples of the abilities we have like that. There are a LOT of them. I just didn't feel like super detailing above ^^

 

It's not just the cd, if i have 2 enemy on me i can f*ck my kolto overload. they just burst the sh*t out of me.

[AMightyKnight]

Looking at the PTS changes, i think we should just ask them to not touch the class again. Chances are they'll blow it somehow.

[MarkXXIV]

Looking at the PTS changes, i think we should just ask them to not touch the class again. Chances are they'll blow it somehow.

 

The changes are no where near finished.

@cs_zoltan Kolto overload is pretty good it just does not make up for mercs weakness in many other areas and could be a more powerful skill.

Edited August 17, 2013 by MarkXXIV

[cs_zoltan]

The changes are no where near finished.

@cs_zoltan Kolto overload is pretty good it just does not make up for mercs weakness in many other areas and could be a more powerful skill.

 

It's useless for ranked that's for sure. You cant pop it before hitting execute range becuase in ranked you can be topped off pretty fast by healer so you have a high chance not to get that low again for minutes, and if you do use belowe 30% you either die or get healed up by healers so again useless, you might healed 1% up by the ability congratulations...

[MarkXXIV]

It's useless for ranked that's for sure. You cant pop it before hitting execute range becuase in ranked you can be topped off pretty fast by healer so you have a high chance not to get that low again for minutes, and if you do use belowe 30% you either die or get healed up by healers so again useless, you might healed 1% up by the ability congratulations...

 

It should heal you the same amount it does now but it shouldn't stop when your hp is up to a certain point. You should be able to use it at 70% hp and get to 100%.

[AMightyKnight]

The changes are no where near finished.

Right. Next round of changes will come after the rep thingy, meaning probably Q1 2014.

[odawgg]

Great discussion all, some good ideas in here that I'll be compiling soon and start a new thread for people to give their final thoughts....I think mighty hit on one of my biggest pet peaves of the mercenary dps...this illusion of off heals/AED/Armor Debuff/Cure etc as being these great 'utility' abilities is just silly when it comes to nightmare content and comparing to what maras and snipers can bring as utility with heals/shields/group dps boosts etc.....a sniper does not lose very much dps if required to apply shatter shot....and then on top of that dps untouchable by a merc with few fight exceptions.

 

Proc reliant (RNG) and heat mgmt. across all specs...being heat reliant in bodyguard yet not being able to rapid shot yourself sux...and Arch I hear what ur saying on playing to our strengths and ignore pyro in questions but I will definitely be trying to give each spec at least some sort of love in the questions cuz I'm jelly of snipers getting 3-4 viable specs to play with.

 

Just a few of my thoughts so far I wanted to share.

[Molltor]

Our PVP question should be about utility.

 

Now you'll notice I've left Assault/Pyro out of the mix. There are two reasons.

 

1) I feel we should play to our strengths. Fact is the majority of Merc/Commandos are either speccing Arsenal/Gunnery or are healing in Body Guard/Combat Medic. The issues for these specs also overlap quite a bit allowing us to meaningfully address two specs at once. Basically I'd rather address two specs that are frequently played rather than address one DPS spec that isn't played as much.

 

2) Assault/Pyro is in fact already pretty viable in PVE, even if it's not necessarily in the way the spec may be intended to be played.

 

3) Many of the issues with Assault/Pyro are the same issues that our PT/VG cousins have and this will have to be a priority for them.

 

Whilst you may be happy having to play Arsenal/Bodyguard, some of us are not. I love my Merc and my Mando, and being forced to play either Gunnery/Arsenal or Combat Medic/Bodyguard, there are (I'm sure) many of us that are not. There is no reason a spec should be ignored just because... Which is essentially what you are saying here. Pyro for Mercs has constantly been on the receiving end of nerfs due to its over represented (at one stage) and stronger Pyro brother in Powertechs and sadly Bioware were too inept to separate the shared AC specs in order to ensure that nerfs were not doubly damaging.

 

I've always preferred the play-style of Pyro and it shouldn't be the bastard-child of an advanced class that doesn't exactly already have over powered specs to choose from. Playing a Merc competitively in either PvP or PvE requires much tighter resource management and possibly more skill than any of the specs than any of the other advance classes in my opinion.

 

I think that Pyro should be made into a more run and gun spec. Take the cast time off PS via talents and reduce its damage output to compensate but keep its proc chance for RS.

 

There also needs to be a heat reduction to the abilities abilities across all specs. Not too much, but if BW truly want us to be a unique utility class it has to allow us to mix it up a little with less heat/ammo punishment that it currently creates.

 

Arsenal, as it is, is in a good place in both PvE and PvP, Bodyguard can cut it in both too but certainly less so in competitive PvP however. Sadly Pyro is lacking in both area's. Sure there is a hybrid (i think at least) that is doing OK in PvE currently, but a hybrid should be a secondary choice over a Full Spec. Pyro needs fixing not ignoring.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Molltor

[AMightyKnight]

The issue here is the danger that Arsenal will suffer if the devs change Pyro. It already happened in 2.0 with the new set bonus and its just not worth it IMO to risk it again. Chances are that the devs wont get Pyro to work anyway.

Furthermore, Arsenal is the established PVE skill tree for the class, whether you like it or not. It will be much more benefitting for the community if we it fixed than any changes to Pyro.

And it really has to be fixed, Arsenal is not in good place when it comes to high end damage output. We are at least 200dps behind the best classes in every current Nightmare boss fight. This is not tolerable and there is no way in hell we can take another fix to Pyro like the new set bonus.

[Molltor]

The issue here is the danger that Arsenal will suffer if the devs change Pyro. It already happened in 2.0 with the new set bonus and its just not worth it IMO to risk it again. Chances are that the devs wont get Pyro to work anyway.

Furthermore, Arsenal is the established PVE skill tree for the class, whether you like it or not. It will be much more benefitting for the community if we it fixed than any changes to Pyro.

And it really has to be fixed, Arsenal is not in good place when it comes to high end damage output. We are at least 200dps behind the best classes in every current Nightmare boss fight. This is not tolerable and there is no way in hell we can take another fix to Pyro like the new set bonus.

 

Arsenal doesn't need touching, a set bonus change? Yes I agree. An improved heat management system? Yes I agree to that also, but having 1 good spec, 1 broken spec, and 1 average spec is not even close to acceptable for this AC. Especially when it is required to be played almost optimally at all times in order to compete. Open your mind beyond Arsenal and you may see that its beyond stupid to ignore a broken spec. Who knows, changes that come about may actually make us have 2 viable specs for both PvP and PvE. We should be aiming for that, not settling for 1 very good spec that will introduce a tonne of FOTM wannabe's in to the AC....