Commando Rep 3 Questions Discussion

[cashogy_reborn]

Hey guys,

 

First, thanks so much for electing me as the inaugural Commando Representative. I greatly appreciate the support, and will do my best to represent you all well.

 

Now, to business. Musco sent me a PM with the details on how the questions should be asked. We are allowed 1 PvE oriented question, 1 PvP oriented question, and 1 Free Choice question (can be about PvE, PvP or anything else).

 

So lets start coming up with some good questions to ask. Feel free to post as few or as many as youd like, and we can generate some discussion on which issues we as a community are most interested in having the devs provide some feedback on. I realize that we are 3+ months away from having our question asked, but I will link this thread over in the Mercenary forum so that Odawgg can consider it when formulating the Mercenary Rep questions (which will be coming up quite soon).

 

Ill go first:

 

Assault is lacking right now in PvP. With the changes that came in 2.0, Assault has lost a large part of its burst potential (something that made the class quite fun to play and made it viable) with the change to Assault Plastique and making it a DoT. In addition, the most popular specs for Assault right now actually do not even take Assault Plastique, which further indicates that it is no longer a good ability. Are the developers aware that 2.0 change to Assault Plastique has had such a negative impact on Assault spec in general, and have they considered the possibility of changing it back to its pre-2.0 iteration (which many players prefer over the post 2.0 iteration)?

[oaceen]

not sure how broad your questions can be, so maybe some things will need to be consolidated later.

 

 

many changes were made to assault during the later stages of 2.0 testing. there was a lot of discussion on the matter, but unfortunately there wasn't a lot of testing due to a widespread bug with many people being unable to login.

it was still pushed to live, and now that we've had several months to experience the changes on the live servers, opinions about the changes are still pretty negative.

many people were still asking for an auto-trigger for plasma cell for charged bolts similar to vanguard's ionized ignition, but hyper assault rounds doesn't seem like a decent alternative. it's a high-cost, low-damage ability and the skill has a 6s lockout, doesn't hit AOE, and vanguards got a similar talent with hyper assault cell that triggers on all targets and has no lockout. the only reasoning i can see is the fact that charged bolts is a 30m attack while ion pulse is only 10. but i would argue that it's balanced by the fact that charged bolts is a cast skill, rooting the player for the duration and susceptible to interrupts.

there was a discussion about assault plastique not being worth its top tier skill status, and a lot of suggestions were given about possible changes, but it seems that the change given is not really what people were hoping for.

many commandos and vanguards agree that it is still more optimal to forgo assault plastique in a PVE build, and many feel that it is not useful in PVP due to its low initial damage and the fact that about half of its damage is easily cleansed.

 

do the devs agree with this assessment? are there any plans to fix assault? can't there be some other way to 'fix' assault plastique and plasma cell uptime and come to at least some middle ground with balancing the spec for PVP and PVE?

 

 

also about skill trees:

in every tree, it seems that when speccing for PVE, many PVP-oriented talents are required the further up into a tree one goes.

is this intended? is there any chance we could see some PVE-oriented talents return to the trees?

things i would like to see: pushback resist talent in assault; auto-trigger for plasma cell with charged bolts

advanced tech (increase outgoing/incoming healing) returned

frontline medic changed so that it's a useful PVE talent, removed completely (since it's not all that useful for PVP imo), or uncoupled from probe medic so that it's not a required talent.

as a related issue, special munitions was increased from a 1 point to a 3 point talent but for combat medic, the overall effect was the same. was this intended?

 

 

ammo regen for gunnery in PVE:

what's up with that?

people are doing just as much damage with 63 armorings and the old eliminator set bonus as people in 72s with the HIB damage increase bonus. for assault, the new set bonus is great. for assault, the old set bonus is useless.

there has to be some other way to balance the set bonus so that it affects both specs equally.

additionally, HIB being free was a very welcome part of the rotation for any commando. it's not impossible to manage ammo with its 10 cell cost, but it was simply a lot easier when it was free. if the set bonus is changed without giving a reduction to ammo, could it be placed somewhere in the tree?

such as increasing special munitions' cell reduction of HIB from 2 per point to 3-5 per point.

Edited July 29, 2013 by oaceen

[mandoforlife]

Congratulations on making class rep Cash! It's great that you already have a questions thread up and running. Here are the questions I think would be a good idea to consider:

 

1) Ammo management. This effects all the specs, and both PvP and PvE. As far as I can tell, its a bit worse for the PvE folks because of the long, drawn out fights and rotations, but you can definatly feel it in these healer stalemates you come across now in PvP. Both the other ranged AC's have very easy, nearly non-existent resource management, so why must our resource be more punishing? I think it would be a good idea for the devs to at least look at this issue.

 

2) Assault. I agree with basically everything you said in the OP. The changes to Assault really ruined the spec, and I don't see it used much anymore since Gunnery outshines it in both PvP and PvE. I really miss the spec, and I think the first step to fixing it is reverting Explosive Plastique back to its pre-2.0 form. Of course more changes are needed besides that, but that's most important imo. It might be a good idea to throw a couple community crafted ideas at them too. Such as giving Explosive Round the chance to proc HIB instead of Charged Bolts, so that we can more efficiently do damage on the move. Assault used to be superior to Gunnery in PvP because it was more mobile, but since 2.0 Gunnery is just as mobile, with better burst and nearly unavoidable damage. This is basically a must-ask question for the devs, I think.

 

3) Cooldowns. Why are they so long compared to other AC's? Specifically Electro Net, PS and TSO. Would they consider reducing some of those CD's? If not, why? And also, why do we lack a straight forward offensive CD? Being as our AC and its mirror are supposed to be "walking arsenals", it seems odd we have no offensive CD.

[Gyronamics]

Could always have an intro to a question. They say they'll give us extremely detailed answers which presumably requires some detail from us in the first place.

 

So... I guess I'll have a bash at a fairly predictable line from me.

 

 

Since 2.0 Assault is widely believed to be inferior to Gunnery in both PVP and PVE, key points being it requires an armour debuff it can't provide in order to match Gunnery and going all the way to the top talent seems to be a dps loss over putting 3 points elsewhere.

 

Compared to Gunnery it lacks:

 

-burst

the top talent of Assault Plastique was changed from impressive burst to essentially a second sticky grenade plus a long DoT which is entirely the opposite thing.

 

Meanwhile 2.0 gave Gunnery the biggest opener in the game when stacking of grav was removed allowing a fully buffed demolition round in 1GCD.

 

-survivability

adrenaline rush questionably altered plus CD reduction removed in 2.0

shield CD reduction improved but moved to Gunnery in 2.0

30% less DoT on use of cleanse extremely niche and often redundant after use of cleanse

 

-group utility

why bring the version which doesn't give an armour debuff

 

-the ability to do maximum damage solo

comes into effect any time a group splits up on targets or simply when you are alone

 

 

Considered by itself it has many questionable secondary talents which suggest that mobility is important but the actual playstyle is of a hardcore caster who suffers badly from enemies using LOS and does extremely costly mobile damage it can't sustain. Alternatively it does very weak mobile damage that has a horrible lockout system (plasma cell locked to 6s between procs and halved in damage on 2.0 release).

 

Even if mobility is the party trick, Gunnery has a better mobility system with the extended HTL vs a root break for Assault and it also has better anti-mobility with a 70% snare on FA plus a guaranteed root on Stockstrike vs the unreliable 2s of 30% snare available for Assault.

 

Both play like heavy casters but only one feels like it has been designed to be a success.

 

A long introduction but the question is:

 

Do you believe the above concerns regarding the subclass of Assault Commando are justified?

Edited July 30, 2013 by Gyronamics

[akabane_k]

pvp one about cm

 

In pvp, cm are considered(righfully so) less useful than ops and sorcs. This stems mostly from the fact that they do not do as well under pressure as an op, or even a sorc. The one major difference is the lack of an instacast no-cd heal(such as static barrier, kolto probe or surgical probe). These abilities allow op/sorc to keep the rest of the team alive without having to rely on casts that are easily interrupted, making them harder to shut down, For commandos, Hammer shot does too little healing, trauma probe is 1 target only, and kolto bomb is only effective for raid healing if people stack together. However due to the prevalence of smash-spec this is usually a bad idea.

 

so, basically the question is how is a commando expected to raid heal, or even have sustained single target healing, when pressured with interrupts and shield is on cd.

[Owynyo]

PVP-Related Questions:

 

Why does Concussive Round have a 2 sec cast time and the same cooldown as Flash Bang / Flash Grenade and Intimidating Roar / Awe?

 

Concussive Round:

• 30m range, knocks out one target
  
• 2 secs cast
  
• 60 secs cd
  
• 8 sec duration
  

 

Flash Bang / Grenade:

• 10m range, on 5 targets within 5 meters
  
• instant cast
  
• 60 secs cd
  
• 8 sec duration
  

 

Intimidating Roar:

• Paralyzes all (outdated?) nearby enemies
  
• instant cast
  
• 60 secs cd
  
• 6 sec duration
  

 

A 2 secs cast is much too long and easily interrupted. Cooldown should be lowered as Flash Bang (same cooldown) affects 5 times as many targets. 30m range does not make up for that. Gunnery should still be able to further reduce the cooldown because a team with a commando relies heavily on CC.

 

Maybe a new spell?

 

Commandos only bring so much utility to a team compared to a marauder. Why not let the have a spell that both reduces resource (i.e. force) regeneration rate and/or increases cast time of spells? Should have moderate cd and should be dispellable. (Think Curse of Tongues in WoW)

Edited July 30, 2013 by Owynyo

[Jherad]

Given that the problems with both Assault and Combat medic are both related to the weakness of their respective specs (skill trees), you should probably try and tie them both into one question. Definitely priority 1 for the class though, so it should be well formulated and phrased as our biggest concern.

 

A grab bag of other concerns for me would be the weakness of adrenaline rush for PvP, particularly in a damage heavy world now (any high end DPS can burst through it in a couple of attacks), the cooldown time of our ... er... cooldowns (), and the weakness of our gear set bonuses.

 

One thing I would absolutely like to suggest however is that the questions be worded very carefully (I hope this doesn't sound condescending!):

 

 

 

• Avoid asking small side-questions within the large ones - devs, like politicians, have a habit of gleefully answering only the easier small question when this happens.
   
   
  
• Make the questions strong and don't cripple them from the outset (eg. DON'T say 'We feel we're mostly in a good place now, but wanted to ask...')
   
   
  
• If we actually want change, frame our concern, then make the question related to that concern as broad as possible. It is very easy to shoot down a narrow question, ESPECIALLY yes/no ones (eg. DON'T ask 'can the cooldown of electronet be reduced to a minute?'), whilst broader ones allow the devs to tackle things with flexibility whilst still alerting them to how WE would like it done.
  

 

 

Sorry if this is a 'how to suck eggs' post

 

 

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of making one of our questions about trying to find the devs' motivations and expectations for the class. Maybe a 'We feel our pvp related issues are X/y/Z. Can you explain in detail what unique role the commando should bring to PvP and your philosophy behind the skills and abilities it brings to the table in achieving that?' type of thing.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Jherad

[TUXs]

• Avoid asking small side-questions within the large ones - devs, like politicians, have a habit of gleefully answering only the easier small question when this happens.
   
   
  
• Make the questions strong and don't cripple them from the outset (eg. 'We feel we're mostly in a good place now, but wanted to ask...')
   
   
  
• If we actually want change, frame our concern, then make the question related to that concern as broad as possible. It is very easy to shoot down a narrow question, ESPECIALLY yes/no ones ('can the cooldown of electronet be reduced to a minute?'), whilst broader ones allow the devs to tackle things with flexibility whilst still alerting them to how WE would like it done.
  

 

Good advice and I agree with all of the points above, minus the kiss up part of #2 (the "we feel" bs) - that's fluff. Stick to the priority question only.

 

"With the changes to Plasma Cell and Assault Plastique, the Assault Spec had it's damage and potency reduced greatly in 2.0. What is being done to make the spec RAID/PvP viable again?"?

 

Give them the facts, not "feelings" and ask what they are doing, not if they can do something. That's my 2¢...

[Capt_Beers]

A few concerns:

 

Gunnery

 

- Why don't we have a ranged root? Why don't we have a dedicated slow? The other 2 ranged classes have these things (granted Sages have to spec into the roots). Full Auto has a slow but it also roots me, that isn't helping me get away. I love the root on Stock Strike but at that point it's a little late. In a perfect world I would like a skill similar to Leg Shot (even it only had a 10m range that would be better). However leaving the root on Stock Strike but adding back it's knock back would be great as well. Something so that when I see an enemy ball carrier running towards the goal my only option isn't just to watch him score.

 

- Mortar Volley hits almost as hard as Smash but is interruptable, easy to avoid and has a long CD. It's on of the best tools we have to get some good AoE damage on tank/healer combos that get too close together (and I mean real close since it's AoE was nerfed for some reason). It also doesn't have any modifiers in any of the talent trees. Can we get something to increase it's AoE, reduce it's CD, increase damage or add a slow while in it's AoE/rooted for first second. I'm not asking for all of them but it's a great ability and it could use some love.

 

- Our DPS ability on the move is abysmal with out Tech Override up. Reducing the cost of Explosive Round or increasing it's damage while HTL is active(or both ) would help this a little bit. This could be tagged on to Advance the Line (or not so that Assault Specs can get it too).

 

Assault

 

- Assault Spec. It's borked. It was never as good as it's VG cousin and the nerf hurt it really bad. I used it when I needed to do some DPS on my my Mando but I would never main it as I would as feel I was wasting a spot since I could have been on my Assault VG so I'm no expert but it's laughable at how bad it is now.

 

Combat Medic

 

- Why doesn't Kolto Pods have an AOE marker on the ground? I would prefer it be something more like Riot Gas where the green kolto cloud expands and sticks around but I have no idea how big it is atm. No one knows to stay in it because they don't know where it ends. Seriously, what's up with that?

 

- Hammer Shots on self plox.

 

- Frontline Medic. This skill is useless. It eats up 2 talent points that could be used elsewhere.

 

- Trauma Probe. This to me is the ability that could be improved the most. It's a good heal and our most energy efficient. It should have more synergy with the rest of our talents though. Since we can only place it on one target and it's no longer free we should get some benefits for using it. It should boost all heals on that target, increase crit chance by a small margin on that target , crits with it's heal should restore ammo; things of that nature. Ditch Frontline Medic and add a talent in it's place to do one of the things I listed and add an effect for Trauma Probe to SCC and BOOM. You have a unique mechanic for the Commando that fits their niche, a strong somewhat bursty single target healer.

 

- Super Charge Cells. The 8 ammo upfront is nice but ammo management is very unforgiving for the Commando. Increasing ammo regen during SCC would be nice. Another suggestion is to have ammo regen marginally increased by the stacks of CSC. It would bring some depth to the class to have to decide whether or not to dump your ammo regen for some extra burst healing/AMP spam or hold on to it for better sustained. I also think it would be cool if during SCC Hail of Bolts could be used as an AoE heal in the same vane as Hammer Shots is a heal.

[SpaniardInfinity]

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of making one of our questions about trying to find the devs' motivations and expectations for the class. Maybe a 'We feel our pvp related issues are X/y/Z. Can you explain in detail what unique role the commando should bring to PvP and your philosophy behind the skills and abilities it brings to the table in achieving that?' type of thing.

 

To be honest, this is the kind of thing I'd really want to see more than anything. I'd love to know what their vision of the class is supposed to be because that way, when we make suggestions on our own like good little forum warriors, we know whether or not they conform to that plan or not. For instance, I usually argue that Combat Medics are justified in being weak at group healing since they are strong at group healing. But the other healers don't seem to have that restriction - the other healers can both group heal while also doing comparable single target healing. So has the Combat Medic outgrown their group weakness at healing, or is that a weakness they have intentionally been designed to respect, in which case, how will you reinforce the single-target aspect of it? I think the same kind of discussions could come up for the other specs as well (like why has Commando Assault Spec been the red-headed step child of Vanguard Assault Spec, in the same way that bologna is the red-headed stepchild of steak).

[Jherad]

Good advice and I agree with all of the points above, minus the kiss up part of #2 (the "we feel" bs) - that's fluff. Stick to the priority question only.

 

The 'we feel we're mostly in a good place' bit was an example of how NOT to start a question heheh. I'm editing my post now to make it clearer

 

My point was that you're crippling the weight of the questions if you focus too much on our improvements. Don't have to be negative (I mean it!) but too much focus on our improvements lends to the idea that we'd happy with nothing.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Jherad

[Altheran]

PvP question, but related to a core skill, not an AC skill :

 

At the moment stealth scan is a small area that reveals stealthing ennemies. But once the ability has been set, it is really easy to avoid as it displays a red marker on the ground for ennemies, and its area of effect is restrained to this circle (unlike Makeb NPC's scan which can reveal players from further than the area delimited by the three droids without any ground marker). It limits its use to reveal someone once you've spotted their presence, otherwise revealing someone with it will be a matter of luck. If you slightly spotted them but they already disappeared, the range of effect also make so that's impossible to protect yourself under its effect by placing it on you, because they can still affect you from further than the maximal range of the scan, you're forced to try to guess their actual position quite accurately.

So, do you think that how this ability can be used matches your expectations, or are you dissatisfied with it ?

 

 

Sorry if it takes a Commando question for something common to all Troopers, but I felt like this is quite the only occasion of when something like that could be answered.

[TUXs]

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of making one of our questions about trying to find the devs' motivations and expectations for the class. Maybe a 'We feel our pvp related issues are X/y/Z. Can you explain in detail what unique role the commando should bring to PvP and your philosophy behind the skills and abilities it brings to the table in achieving that?' type of thing.

 

The problem with that is...it's a softball question...if I were them I'd simply answer like this:

"Mandos are meant to be a more resilient DPS/Healer than classes like a Sage or a Sentinal - because of their higher durability, DPS/Healing is slightly lower than it's counterparts".

 

We KNOW what our issues are...we don't need to ask them what the hell they're thinking, it doesn't matter...WE play the class, we KNOW the roles we suck at and WE know the reasons we get bypassed for other classes. WE know our weaknesses and our strengths better than they do...this is our chance to tell them, not ask them. I really believe we need to state what our issues are and ask what they are going to do about them, giving as many comparisons as possible to other healing/DPS classes to make our point obvious...we can't leave wiggle room imo.

(forgive me if that sounds like a rant against you, I absolutely don't intend for it to read that way - I mean it as being insistent that we get our issues acknowledged)

[TUXs]

The 'we feel we're mostly in a good place' bit was an example of how NOT to start a question heheh. I'm editing my post now to make it clearer

 

My point was that you're crippling the weight of the questions if you focus too much on our improvements. Don't have to be negative (I mean it!) but too much focus on our improvements lends to the idea that we'd happy with nothing.

 

Oh nice, the edit is perfect

[ManiacDavis]

A lot of great questions so far.

[ArchangelLBC]

1) PVE Question: Each spec has it's own concerns in PVE which we would like the developers to comment on individually.

 

Gunnery: With the nerfing of Special munitions (reducing it's overall effectiveness while simultaneously tripling the cost for that full lessened effect) in combination with the change to the 4 piece PVE eliminator's set bonus, ammo management on Gunnery has become very very tight to the point that incredibly high play is required ti milk competitive numbers out of the spec, while any screw up is very harshly punished (since the ammo management tools we do have almost have to be used offensively to keep up good damage). This is such a big issue that use of the old Dread Guard 4 piece set bonus results in the same or better DPS as using the Underworld 4 piece set bonus (possibly kell dragon as well? Someon ask odawgg) despite the huge disparity in aim (72.96 net aim loss between DG and UW when you account for buffs to aim) with its accompanying penalties to critical hit rate and bonus damage. It seems that either a buff to special munitions or a retuning of the current eliminator set bonus to have both the cost reduction and the damage boost to HiB would be the easiest fix. Given this fact

 

Assault: The spec is borked. Cash or Gyro could better explain. This post is mostly a template, especially when I don't feel fully qualified to comment, but certainly the fact that leaving out the top talent seems to be the optimal configuration, as well as its general inferiority to gunnery which Gyro has already gone into should be mentioned.

 

Combat Medic: There are issues, people who play combat medic full time could more adequately explain. Frontline medic is a bad talent on its own anyway, and ESPECIALLY because the two points are required for Probe medic. Someone who has an extensive knowledge of using CM in HM or NiM ops would be better equipped to discuss concerns for this spec.

 

Could the devs comment on these concerns, and their own vision for each spec in a PVE setting?

 

Remark: To hear some tell it Ammo management is not an Assault Problem, and Assault is so borked at the moment that it deserves its own mention. Additionally some say ammo is no problem in PVE for CM, and others disagree and I don't have enough healing experience to comment either way. I feel The specs should have their own biggest concerns clearly indicated since sans ammo management I can't think of any overriding issue that affects all three specs in PVE, and talking about only one spec is disingenuous since we have healers as well as DPSers, and pretty much all of the DPSers have concerns about both gunnery and assault (even I'd like to mix it up sometimes). Additionally, one could also ask for the addition of an actual offensive cooldown, though that's somewhat addressed by question 3.

 

2) PVP question: Again I'm not prepared to comment on the current state of Commando in PVP, especially in a ranked setting, in anything like the level it deserves. I will say that I personally believe that a lack of utility seems to continue to be our overriding issue. I would probably copy/paste Jherad's previous post in this thread as far as utility suggestions for each spec since, again, each spec's utility requirements are somewhat different. I would note that I fully suggest the addition of either a baseline slow (independent of spec, and not requiring self rooting on our post) on a reasonable cooldown, or a baseline root that doesn't require melee range to use properly. Also, personally I still feel that 90s is too long a lockout on Electronet, but again that concern may not hold up in practice.

 

Gunnery: Placeholder for format purposes, copy what Jherad said.

 

Assault: See above, also still borked.

 

Combat Medic: See above.

 

Remark: General utility here seems most important to me so maybe we don't need a spec by spec breakdown, but again I'm just not fully equipped to discuss it.

 

3) For the free question, to me the most important overriding issue not already previously addressed by any of the above is the plethora of abilities whose benefit is all out of proportion with their usability. To me the biggest culprits are: Tech Override/Power Surge, Adrenaline Rush/Kolto Overload, Plasma Grenade/Fusion Missile, and Reserve Powercell/Thermal Sensor Override.

 

Tech Override/Power Surge: I've touched on this already, and Cash practically led the charge on this and RP back when 2.0 was on the PTS, but 1 instant cast every 2 minutes baseline (2 consecutive instant casts every 90 seconds in gunnery) is just awful for a level 46 ability. It does literally nothing to help us do more damage or be more ammo/heat efficient in PVE, and it's the tiniest of bandaids in PVP when trying to cast under pressure. I've almost always used it to get an instant cast concussion round/concussion missile off in either environment. The talent in gunnery/arsenal is nice, but I'd honestly rather have that buff applied to RP/TSO in PVE, whereas two instant CBs/PSs in PVP Assault/Pyro (assuming they fix that tree) would be pretty nice. Either way the cooldown is way way too long for the benefit it provides, and if they insist on only 1 to 2 instant casts then the cooldown needs to be dropped to 60 seconds. If they insist on a 2 minute baseline cooldown the effect should last for 10-12 seconds and I'd like to see it come with a cost reduction for all ammo skills while active. Not make everything free, but maybe a 50% cost to ammo/heat spending skills or increased ammo regen for the duration. Better yet give us an actual offensive cooldown. Give me battle focus/explosive fuel. I will rock faces with it.

 

 

Plasma Grenade/Fusion Missile: The only real problems with this skill is its ridiculous cost. It has the cost of a spammable low damage 5 target AoE like Hail of Bolts or Sweeping Blasters, but a 30 second cooldown, and only hits three targets. It really is pretty awesome for single target damage so I don't even mind the low target threshold, especially since its in keeping with other grenade/missile abilities, but the cost needs to be cut in half at least. Actually giving it a cost of 8-10 ammo would help our ammo out quite nicely since I'm sure both DPS specs would be using it on cooldown and something like a good damage ammo neutral ability would help address the above issue nicely. Generally to keep an ability from being OP it either has a decent length cooldown or an absurd cost. PG/FM has both, and that is dumb.

 

Adrenaline Rush/Kolto Overload: A 90 second effect which, when you are below 30% health triggers a semi hot on you for 8 seconds which constantly tries to heal you up to, but not exceeding, 30% health, and then triggers a 3 minute cooldown. Are you serious? This is an ability that is literally only used because its there and is psychologically better than nothing. I would be hard pressed to find an ability in this entire game whose effect and usefulness was more out of all proportion with its cooldown. I have no clue why this ability was reworked, but it needs to be reworked again. With a 3 minute cooldown it should trigger immediately and keep healing you for all 8 seconds. Even as good as that would be I would argue the cooldown should be 2 minutes instead of 3, but even so, an adrenaline rush that worked like that would actually have some very nice survivability uses in both PVE and PVP. Note that it wouldn't allow us to cheese big hits that are supposed to one shot us since if we take more damage in one instant than we have HP we die regardless, but its applications for making lives easier on healers are just endless. I understand that VGs/PTs have a talent which makes it better, but that talent could be changed and I think they'd be fine with an overall much better adrenaline rush.

 

Reserve Powercell/Thermal Sensor Override: Again the effect is nice but we get exactly one free ability every 2 minutes (90 seconds if you're in assault), which is the teeniest tiniest band aid to ammo management ever. Again, if you're only gonna allow it to work on one ability, lower the cooldown to a minute. If you're going to keep the 2 minute cooldown, then give me 10 seconds of absolute free casting. Personally the former option seems more balanced, but either way this and Tech Override feel more like abilities I'd see in a Final Fantasy MMO than like anything else in SWTOR.

 

I would like to know if any of the above abilities could be reworked to make them more usable and bring them more in line with other cooldowns and abilities in the game.

 

Remark: Obviously this is a copy/paste of something I've posted before since I didn't feel like reinventing the wheel, but I feel this question is still completely valid. In particular the points about Tech Override and Reserve Powercell. To my knowledge there is not another 2 minute cooldown in the entire game that has such a long cooldown and only affects one ability. Force Potency/Recklessness has a 90 seconds cooldown baseline, affects two abilities baseline, and is a 60% improvement to force critical hit rate, which charges only consumed if the ability used actually criticals or if that ability is Force Lightning. Laze Target/Smugglers luck is a 100% boost in critical hit rate to your next snipe/charged burst and is only on a 60s cooldown. Those are the only two abilities I'm even aware of that act like TO and RP do affecting only one ability, and their usability as well as their actual effect is much much better.

 

Anyway I'd structure it something like this if I were you Cash.

Edited July 30, 2013 by ArchangelLBC

[SOULCASTER]

Here are my quick recommendations to fix the commando class. Trust me I can go WAY more in depth than this but this list is what my commando patch notes would look like:

 

 

COMBAT MEDIC TREE

• KOLTO WAVE (Talent Box)
  add to this talent box, a [5 second per point] reduction to Concussion Charge's Knockback (making it on par with Sage's knockback heal).
   
  
• TRAUMA PROBE (Ability Talent Box)
  Reduce its action cost to apply by half. Reducing it down to 1 cell/8heat
  
• PROBE MEDIC (Talent Box)
  This ability box is now unlinked from the "Front Line Medic" talent box.
  
• FIRST RESPONDER (Talent Box)
  Increase the alacrity of this box back up to 5% alacrity with full points invested. (the way it was before 2.0)
  

 

GUNNERY TREE

• CONCUSSIVE FORCE (Talent Box)
  Add the knock-back back to this ability that it used to have. Keeping the root effects it currently has.
  

 

ASSAULT SPECIALIST TREE

• ASSAULT PLASTQUE (Ability Talent Box)
  Change this box back to exactly the way it was before 2.0.
  
• IONIC ACCELERATOR (Talent Box)
  Add 'Stockstrike' having a 60% chance to reset the cooldown of High-Impact-Bolt, like Vanguard has.
  
• WEAPON CALIBRATIONS (Talent Box)
  Increase Alacrity gained by 2% per point spent. (Up from 1% per point spent, on live).
  

 

Now, that all said, I would like to also implement another recommendation for the Assault Specialist tree. This is on my "Lulz" Wall of crazy. Feel free to flame it. Though I think it would give assault commando's an interesting group utility for both PVE and PVP.

 

 

• HAMMER SHOTS, While in PLASMA CELL, no longer does standard hammer-shot damage, instead will shoot a Red Beam (exactly like first responder medic's hammer shots) on the enemy target, giving the same chance to apply the plasma cell dot as currently on live, and IN ADDITION: Negates the healing received to the target by 20% and increases the damage that target takes by 10% from all sources, while the target is being hit with Hammer Shots.
  

 

/discuss or /flame

Edited July 30, 2013 by SOULCASTER

[Capt_Beers]

CAn our third question be "Can we have more questions?" Or is there a genie/wishes rule type thing going on here?

[TUXs]

CAn our third question be "Can we have more questions?" Or is there a genie/wishes rule type thing going on here?

 

I lol'd

Edited July 30, 2013 by TUXs

[General_Aldo]

For Combat Medic, the healing output isn't the problem. Or survivability. Don't let people tell you otherwise.

 

The real problem is Resource Management.

 

Commando/Merc current resource rate just isn't reliable for a prolonged fight. (In PvP)

 

Here is what should be done:

 

Revert resources back to pre 1.2

 

I know this is very general, but this is just something to throw out there.

 

BY THE WAY

 

I know commando/Merc should be healing lowest of all 3 healing classes. (Since they are hardest to kill 1v1)

BUT, their healing output shouldn't be so low compared to other healing classes.

 

- A simple fix to this is improve resource management. Then their HPS will also increase

[Jherad]

The problem with that is...it's a softball question...if I were them I'd simply answer like this:

"Mandos are meant to be a more resilient DPS/Healer than classes like a Sage or a Sentinal - because of their higher durability, DPS/Healing is slightly lower than it's counterparts".

 

We KNOW what our issues are...we don't need to ask them what the hell they're thinking, it doesn't matter...WE play the class, we KNOW the roles we suck at and WE know the reasons we get bypassed for other classes. WE know our weaknesses and our strengths better than they do...this is our chance to tell them, not ask them. I really believe we need to state what our issues are and ask what they are going to do about them, giving as many comparisons as possible to other healing/DPS classes to make our point obvious...we can't leave wiggle room imo.

(forgive me if that sounds like a rant against you, I absolutely don't intend for it to read that way - I mean it as being insistent that we get our issues acknowledged)

 

I know you're not ranting at me, don't worry

 

I know we know what we want, but the problem is that as Cash said somewhere, all of our ideas and suggestions get ignored. All of them, bar none. I'd like to think (heh) that BW has some kind of overarching philosophy for the class that we just haven't figured out yet (and that goes beyond 'ranged DPS with more armor than a sage'), given some of the head-scratching changes that have been made (melee root yay) in the past.

 

Getting a handle on the 'commando design specifications' as it were might go a long way towards helping us feed back in a manner which both parties were happier with and led to constructive improvement.

 

Of course in a perfect world, Bioware would be offering up those philosophies for every class on the swtor.com website holonet class information section... 'Trained in advanced assault tactics and weaponry, Commandos charge into battle with massive assault cannons, overwhelming their enemies with brute firepower. ' is meaningless fluff.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Jherad

[oaceen]

CAn our third question be "Can we have more questions?" Or is there a genie/wishes rule type thing going on here?

 

i think if we did that they would just say 'nope, that was your last question. MOVING ON!'

[TeganKing]

PVE QUESTIONS

 

Combat Medic - Can the 'Frontline Medic' ability be changed to allow this to trigger trauma probes on other targets than yourself?

 

Gunnery - Can 'Advance the Line' now add when hold the line is active you will generate 100% less threat on next two tech attacks?

 

Assault - Can 'Suit FOE' in addition to reducing periodic damage, it will also reduce threat generation by 100% for next two tech attacks?

 

PVP QUESTIONS

 

Combat Medic - Can 'Bacta Infusion' have a shield component added to it that lasts a few seconds after the infusion that would resist the next force or tech attack (making it only useful in PVP)?

 

Gunnery - Can 'Overclock' also reduce the cast time of Concussive Round by .5 seconds per point?

 

Assault - Can we change Assault Plastique back to pre-2.0 (no DoT) and reduce its total damage, but also reduce its CD?

 

OPEN QUESTIONS

 

Combat Medic - Can 'Field Triage' ability also reduce the CD of Advanced Medical Probe by 1 second each point spent, therefore increasing our overall heal output?

 

Gunnery - Can 'Charged Launcher' have a component added to add an additional 25% damage to charged bolts for targets under 30% HP?

 

Assault - Can 'Hyper Barrels' have a component added to add an additional 25% damage to charged bolts for targets under 30% HP?

Edited July 30, 2013 by TeganKing

[foxmob]

Are the developers aware that 2.0 change to Assault Plastique has had such a negative impact on Assault spec in general, and have they considered the possibility of changing it back to its pre-2.0 iteration (which many players prefer over the post 2.0 iteration)?

 

I like where your head is, but I'm very nervous about the form this question takes. Other than avoiding yes/no questions, I might also try to work-in a couple possible suggestions.

[oaceen]

I like where your head is, but I'm very nervous about the form this question takes. Other than avoiding yes/no questions, I might also try to work-in a couple possible suggestions.

 

avoiding the yes/no problem is exactly why i referenced the 2.0 discussions in my analysis.

 

i think it's important to get to the bottom of why they changed in the way that they did and what was so wrong with the other suggestions (or simply leaving it alone).