- Official Operative Concerns Thread -

[Morde_]

Greetings, fellow Star Wars nerds!

 

First off I'd like to give a special thanks to all who voted. Even if you didn't vote for me, it's nice to see that there is still a large enough population of interested individuals to make this whole representative endeavour worthwhile. For those of you who are interested in who I am or where I play, a quick bio can be found here.

 

If you're disappointed that I was elected this position, I have some comforting words for you: it's not up to me to decide the 3 questions.

 

It's my task to engage the community, encourage discussion, provide my own personal insights, and ultimately procure 3 questions that the majority of us support. While my background is strictly PvP, I promise I know enough of the class to be able to understand and discuss PvE topics as well, though I will defer a lot of that trust to our resident PvE experts that frequent this board. Keep in mind that at least one of the questions must be PvE related, and at least one must be PvP related.

 

According to the questions schedule, we're due to present our questions on Friday, October 25. I'll admit that I'm a bit disappointed that this date is so far away, and notably after the proposed release of 2.4, but at least we'll have plenty of time for discussion.

 

That being said, let's get the ball rolling. I've been scoping through some of the already informative "Operative Concerns" threads on this board and have summarized some of the most common issues that have been discussed so far. Special thanks to MiralukaJedi, Racter, and others for putting a lot of this together.

 

PvP:

• Seemingly the largest concern so far is the lack of defensive cooldowns and talents as DPS spec. Concealment and lethality simply don't provide the same survivability when compared to the other DPS advanced classes. I'll freely admit that if my rated team ever sees a DPS operative on the other team (very rare), we will always focus them down with ease.
  
• Lack of an AoE damage reduction talent in a smasher's world.
  
• Hidden Strike, one of our bread and butter abilities, is very weak. Hidden Strike requires preparation, stealth, and can only be used once or twice in a fight. In long, drawn out midfights, it is barely used. I find it completely unreasonable that Smash gets 100% chance to crit after every leap, yet our best opening move is not a guaranteed crit. Like I've said before, opening with a non-crit Hidden Strike is the most unsatisfying thing as a DPS operative in PvP. Suggestion: Allow for concealment operatives to use Hidden Strike while Sneak is active?
  
• Energy management for concealment is very weak. I've noticed this as well when I play concealment in long, drawn out midfights that I'm often out of energy and auto-attacking with the occasional backstab while waiting for adrenaline rush to come back off cooldown.
  
• PvP set bonuses for operatives all across the board are dreadful, to the point where many operatives (including myself) seek PvE bonuses. An extra second on infiltrate/evasion is weak. The PvE set bonuses are vastly superior to their PvP counterparts.
  
• Concealment needs a tool that separates it from marauders. Let me make one thing clear, I'm perfectly fine with marauders having a higher damage output than concealment operatives. Marauders are a pure DPS class. They don't have the option to respec healing, or stealth and CC cap nodes, or anything like that. If someone chooses an advanced class who's only ability is to output damage, then they should be at the top of the charts. This goes for snipers as well. However, this means that concealment needs something else which makes them viable to bring. I've seen in many places, and I've suggested it as well, that concealment needs a strong healing debuff tied to one of its abilities. One of the major flaws in PvP these days is that the game is waaaay too tanky/healy. By introducing a strong healing debuff to concealment, it helps reduce the TTK (time-to-kill) in this very healy game, and it provides valuable justification to bring a concealment operative on the team, without making marauders cry about losing their spot as the king of melee DPS.
  

 

PvE:

• The stealth detect mechanic destroys Concealment, as it leaves the operative unable to hidden strike. Being able to Hidden Strike out of stealth in certain scenarios (perhaps while sneak is active?) might be a reasonable solution to explore.
  
• For weird mobs or orbs it can be hard to tell what part is the back. 360 backstab or a marker would be nice.
  

 

Both PvP and PvE:

• For Lethality it is tricky to distinguish your dots from somebody else's. Note that this applies to HoTs as well. I've noticed when healing with another operative that it annoys me very much how I can't distinguish my HoTs from my partner's, when looking at raid frames. In addition, two or more lethality hinder each other by sucking up weakening blasts that could be used for Cull. Finally, operative's DoTs make CC difficult since they can only talent to not break their own CC. Suggestion: make raid frames more customizable (we know how much Bioware loves this sort of thing) so that our own HoTs and DoTs are distinguishable.
  
• Overload Shot - What's up with an ability that costs a ludicrous amount of energy for little more damage than an auto-attack? Suggestion: Have overload shot grant TA (mostly for lethality ops who are getting kited and can't get the shiv off for a TA)
  
• Meticulously Kept Blades (concealment tree) increases the critical bonus damage of Sever Tendon by 30%. This is just hilarious. Racter's suggestion: Add shiv and laceration to the surge bonus granted by the talent Meticulously Kept Blades.
  
• The "going out of combat" mechanic is compeletly broken, it has always been, despite the changes they tried to make a while ago (I don't remember when exactly).
  
• Talent for AoE or damage reduction while stunned.
  
• Toxic Regulators needs to ignore all friendly sleep attacks.
  
• Energy management across all 3 trees should be consistent.
  
• Surprise surgery should be lower in the medicine tree, as it seems to benefit concealment more than it does for healers.
  

 

If you find that you strongly agree with any of these issues, or if you'd like to contribute a new issue, please post in this thread. I need to know what the majority feels are the most important issues, so make your voice heard. If you find that certain issues bother you more than others when you play, just say so, and I'll prioritize the most popular ones.

 

Thanks for reading, everyone. Feel free to post here, PM me, or find me ingame on The Bastion as Scold or Scoldrel [R] if you have any sort of questions, comments, or are seeking operative advice. Let's try to keep discussion civil as best as we can. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and this is just a game; we're all here to have fun.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Morde_

[Morde_]

Reserved in hopes of getting tons of ideas.

[snave]

Congratulations on winning the vote, I was speaking with Gudarz on the weekend about having you as our representative so I'm glad you got the spot.

 

I think you've covered the main areas that need to be addressed in your opening post however if these points aren't even going to be raised until October and after 2.4 I can't help but feel this whole exercise is a little redundant. We're looking at the best part of 4 months until the questions can even be asked, that makes little to no sense to me.

 

As a rabid concealment fan boy I'm glad to see you focusing on the rather glaring disadvantages the class has and from speaking with Gudarz he's assured me that it's also a spec you enjoy playing so fingers crossed in 4 months time when we can raise 3 points about the many issues this class has they'll then get them fixed some time within the following 6 months.

 

So hopefully in about a year I'll be able to play ranked with my guild.

 

I think you'll be coming on my show this Saturday so we can have a quick chat about it all then

[kwakkwak]

I think both dps specs in regards to PVP are much better off then you give them credit. leth when played correctly loses in damg only to snipers and smashers. leth also can create tons of advantage by dotting up 2-4 targets at once to to give your smashers options for kills.

 

the issues i find that need to be addressed

1. dots breaking CC... id like either our talent make it so all CC isnt broken by out leth dots or give us something to "recall" our dots and perhaps gain a small energy gain or something.

2. conc needs a better energy flow. this can be resolved simply by looking at the costs of the attacks.

3. hidden strike usable during sneak or auto crit has to happen. or just improve the system for getting out of combat.

4. also expl probe usable by conc not crouched would be pretty nice.

 

we could def use some work but i do think a good player will always be able to make the specs work fine.

[snave]

I think both dps specs in regards to PVP are much better off then you give them credit. leth when played correctly loses in damg only to snipers and smashers. leth also can create tons of advantage by dotting up 2-4 targets at once to to give your smashers options for kills.

 

the issues i find that need to be addressed

1. dots breaking CC... id like either our talent make it so all CC isnt broken by out leth dots or give us something to "recall" our dots and perhaps gain a small energy gain or something.

2. conc needs a better energy flow. this can be resolved simply by looking at the costs of the attacks.

3. hidden strike usable during sneak or auto crit has to happen. or just improve the system for getting out of combat.

4. also expl probe usable by conc not crouched would be pretty nice.

 

we could def use some work but i do think a good player will always be able to make the specs work fine.

 

This is flat out incorrect. Lethality is ineffective fluff damage, it's easily cleansed and easily healed through. The only way this type of damage is effective is when you have multiple instances of it stacking so for example a whole team with DOT based DPS to apply group wide pressure and then maybe 2 smashers to coordinate burst AOE. Suggesting lethality is viable in ranked quite amusing. Lethality has to be one of the most flattering specs in the game at the moment in terms of numbers vs performance.

 

Before some one links the video of the 6 lethality operatives and 2 snipers doing ranked, please understand that in that video they are not against a decent level of competition and they're also stacking DOT classes which is the only way it's going to be effective. Seriously, if lethality or concealment was at all viable you'd see of them in ranked teams.

 

Also suggesting that good players will make these specs works fine does have one small logical pitfall. There is a virtual 0% presence of concealment operatives in RWZ, if what you are saying is correct then that also means we have zero good players. You also need to understand the difference between making something work and balance, I can theoretically race against a F1 car in my VW Golf and if they're a really bad driver and I'm a brilliant driver then there's a chance I could win however that does not make it a balanced encounter.

[Morde_]

Congratulations on winning the vote, I was speaking with Gudarz on the weekend about having you as our representative so I'm glad you got the spot.

 

I think you've covered the main areas that need to be addressed in your opening post however if these points aren't even going to be raised until October and after 2.4 I can't help but feel this whole exercise is a little redundant. We're looking at the best part of 4 months until the questions can even be asked, that makes little to no sense to me.

 

As a rabid concealment fan boy I'm glad to see you focusing on the rather glaring disadvantages the class has and from speaking with Gudarz he's assured me that it's also a spec you enjoy playing so fingers crossed in 4 months time when we can raise 3 points about the many issues this class has they'll then get them fixed some time within the following 6 months.

 

So hopefully in about a year I'll be able to play ranked with my guild.

 

I think you'll be coming on my show this Saturday so we can have a quick chat about it all then

 

I actually really have a ton of fun as concealment. I play healing in rateds because it's the only viable tree, but if I could play concealment more, I'd love to.

 

Yeah I was a little bit disappointed too about having to wait til October... Arenas won't be addressed in time.

 

P.S I may or may not be out of town on Saturday, what time are you planning on doing things?

[snave]

P.S I may or may not be out of town on Saturday, what time are you planning on doing things?

 

Normal start time is 5pm GMT+1, this weeks show is going to be MVP and Nostrum so I think it would be fun if you could come along

[Morde_]

If my timezone math is correct, I should be able to make it, hopefully. Edited July 30, 2013 by Morde_

[snave]

If my timezone math is correct, I should be able to make it, hopefully.

 

I know there's a lot of people looking forward to hearing MVP's and ND's opinions on the state of PvP at the moment so I'm hoping you can make it too. And I promise not to chew your ear off about operatives.

 

That may be a lie.

[Etrain]

PvE operative here. I'm at work so I'll make this quick and come back to this later....

 

What's the deal with overload shot? Shiv, lacerate, back stab, hidden strike, and orbital strike all work well together when you proper ally use adrenaline probe and stimulating boost. So in comes overload shot, it's like 17 energy and does a little bit more damage than an auto attack. I'm actually more inclined to drop to cover, auto shoot, then explosive probe still over an overload shot.

 

An operatives static damage boost to this ability implies they want us using it as a filler of sorts buts it's sooooooo weak.

[Griad]

I am mainly playing PVE and only lethality, only thing i can think of that we could use is the ability to stack 3 tactical advantages, or maybe 1 more way to proc it.

 

In regards of concealment i play that a little if i PVP and i have to agree that we need some sort of bonus to crit maybe in the acid blade to make it really top tier worthy.

 

Then there is the set bonuses in my opinion compared to other classes we get the short end of the stick.

[Zunayson]

This is flat out incorrect. Lethality is ineffective fluff damage, it's easily cleansed and easily healed through. The only way this type of damage is effective is when you have multiple instances of it stacking so for example a whole team with DOT based DPS to apply group wide pressure and then maybe 2 smashers to coordinate burst AOE. Suggesting lethality is viable in ranked quite amusing. Lethality has to be one of the most flattering specs in the game at the moment in terms of numbers vs performance.

 

Before some one links the video of the 6 lethality operatives and 2 snipers doing ranked, please understand that in that video they are not against a decent level of competition and they're also stacking DOT classes which is the only way it's going to be effective. Seriously, if lethality or concealment was at all viable you'd see of them in ranked teams.

 

Also suggesting that good players will make these specs works fine does have one small logical pitfall. There is a virtual 0% presence of concealment operatives in RWZ, if what you are saying is correct then that also means we have zero good players. You also need to understand the difference between making something work and balance, I can theoretically race against a F1 car in my VW Golf and if they're a really bad driver and I'm a brilliant driver then there's a chance I could win however that does not make it a balanced encounter.

 

Lethality's burst is stupidly high. It's not fronloaded, and together with an operative's squishines makes lethality bad for anything than a long fight where it can set up its stuff. Most of the damage comes from cull, and you need a double clense in order to mess with it. The hardest classes to kill are nullified. By no means is it the best at anything, which is why nobody takes it on ranked teams. It's still good, and my team said that once the smash nerf came, we should consider taking a lethality operative.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Zunayson

[KrunchyMedia]

add it so they improve raid frames and make it so u can see hots on ppl

 

or make the raid frames more customizable.

[warultima]

Grats on winning the vote.

 

I would like to express my feeling on operative dps (especially concealment) being unviable in rateds.

 

Why is it so "un-imaginable" that concealment can preform a little bit better than it is rightnow? Cant we bump up concealment so its more like its big sister deception Sin?

 

I have 4 character at 55. operative being my favorite. But the only way I can do rateds with my guildies is to spec Medicine.

 

If medicine being viable is the reason why the dps aspect of operative must be kept ****** then can we please get dual specs (i wouldnt mind paying real USD!)? So I can heal in rateds and play what I want in normal? And if medicine is why dps operative should be crappy, why is it an exception for Sorcs? They have amazing heals when specced, amazing burst in lightning, and they can even hybrid and heal/dps decently at the same time?

Edited July 30, 2013 by warultima

[jillun]

First of all, congratulation for being elected.

 

English is not my primary language so bare with me please

 

I just read the op, but there is one thing that comes to mind, concerning concealment... and overall everyone in this game.

 

The "going out of combat" mechanic is compeletly broken, it has always been, despite the changes they tried to make a while ago (I don't remember when exactly).

 

As a concealment, just for fun, in a pug, without using corrosive dart, it took me 3 minutes and 30 seconds to get out of combat, doing nothing, hiding myself, not taking any damage or anything else. It was just to be sure that it's broken, and it truly is. That just seems crazy to me.

 

If they fix that, not only will it help us as concealment ops, but it will also make the game more enjoyable for everybody.

 

Now kinda off topic : the jump is completely broken with sprint enabled. That's just hilarious. Fix it Bioware. Seriously. Fix the game itself, then fix the classes.

[Gondolindhrim]

add it so they improve raid frames and make it so u can see hots on ppl

 

or make the raid frames more customizable.

This, I'd love to have the option to only show buffs cast by myself (as well as debuffs of course).

[platinumruggo]

Yeah the out of combat mechanic needs to be fixed, I've waited several minutes to get out of combat just so I can rejoin the action or try to ninja cap or whatever, this is unacceptable. Congratulations on being elected good sir, hopefully we can get the proper issues evaluated so ops using the dps specs can be viable.

[Yestreen]

Greetings, fellow Star Wars nerds!

 

First off I'd like to give a special thanks to all who voted. Even if you didn't vote for me, it's nice to see that there is still a large enough population of interested individuals to make this whole representative endeavour worthwhile. For those of you who are interested in who I am or where I play, a quick bio can be found here.

 

If you're disappointed that I was elected this position, I have some comforting words for you: it's not up to me to decide the 3 questions.

 

It's my task to engage the community, encourage discussion, provide my own personal insights, and ultimately procure 3 questions that the majority of us support. While my background is strictly PvP, I promise I know enough of the class to be able to understand and discuss PvE topics as well, though I will defer a lot of that trust to our resident PvE experts that frequent this board. Keep in mind that at least one of the questions must be PvE related, and at least one must be PvP related.

 

According to the questions schedule, we're due to present our questions on Friday, October 25. I'll admit that I'm a bit disappointed that this date is so far away, and notably after the proposed release of 2.4, but at least we'll have plenty of time for discussion.

 

That being said, let's get the ball rolling. I've been scoping through some of the already informative "Operative Concerns" threads on this board and have summarized some of the most common issues that have been discussed so far. Special thanks to MiralukaJedi, Racter, and others for putting a lot of this together.

 

PvP:

• Seemingly the largest concern so far is the lack of defensive cooldowns and talents as DPS spec. Concealment and lethality simply don't provide the same survivability when compared to the other DPS advanced classes. I'll freely admit that if my rated team ever sees a DPS operative on the other team (very rare), we will always focus them down with ease.
  
• Lack of an AoE damage reduction talent in a smasher's world.
  
• Hidden Strike, one of our bread and butter abilities, is very weak. Hidden Strike requires preparation, stealth, and can only be used once or twice in a fight. In long, drawn out midfights, it is barely used. I find it completely unreasonable that Smash gets 100% chance to crit after every leap, yet our best opening move is not a guaranteed crit. Like I've said before, opening with a non-crit Hidden Strike is the most unsatisfying thing as a DPS operative in PvP.
  
• Energy management for concealment is very weak. I've noticed this as well when I play concealment in long, drawn out midfights that I'm often out of energy and auto-attacking with the occasional backstab while waiting for adrenaline rush to come back off cooldown.
  
• Meticulously Kept Blades (concealment tree) increases the critical bonus damage of Sever Tendon by 30%. This is just hilarious. Racter's suggestion: Add shiv and laceration to the surge bonus granted by the talent Meticulously Kept Blades.
  
• PvP set bonuses for operatives all across the board are dreadful, to the point where many operatives (including myself) seek PvE bonuses. An extra second on infiltrate/evasion is weak. The PvE set bonuses are vastly superior to their PvP counterparts.
  
• Concealment needs a tool that separates it from marauders. Let me make one thing clear, I'm perfectly fine with marauders having a higher damage output than concealment operatives. Marauders are a pure DPS class. They don't have the option to respec healing, or stealth and CC cap nodes, or anything like that. If someone chooses an advanced class who's only ability is to output damage, then they should be at the top of the charts. This goes for snipers as well. However, this means that concealment needs something else which makes them viable to bring. I've seen in many places, and I've suggested it as well, that concealment needs a strong healing debuff tied to one of its abilities. One of the major flaws in PvP these days is that the game is waaaay too tanky/healy. By introducing a strong healing debuff to concealment, it helps reduce the TTK (time-to-kill) in this very healy game, and it provides valuable justification to bring a concealment operative on the team, without making marauders cry about losing their spot as the king of melee DPS.
  

 

PvE:

• The stealth detect mechanic destroys Concealment, as it leaves the operative unable to hidden strike. Being able to Hidden Strike out of stealth in certain scenarios (perhaps while sneak is active?) might be a reasonable solution to explore.
  
• For Lethality it is tricky to distinguish your dots from somebody else's. Note that this applies to HoTs as well. I've noticed when healing with another operative that it annoys me very much how I can't distinguish my HoTs from my partner's, when looking at raid frames. In addition, two or more lethality hinder each other by sucking up weakening blasts that could be used for Cull. Finally, operative's DoTs make CC difficult since they can only talent to not break their own CC.
  
• For weird mobs or orbs it can be hard to tell what part is the back. 360 backstab or a marker would be nice.
  

 

If you find that you strongly agree with any of these issues, or if you'd like to contribute a new issue, please post in this thread. I need to know what the majority feels are the most important issues, so make your voice heard. If you find that certain issues bother you more than others when you play, just say so, and I'll prioritize the most popular ones.

 

Thanks for reading, everyone. Feel free to post here, PM me, or find me ingame on The Bastion as Scold or Scoldrel [R] if you have any sort of questions, comments, or are seeking operative advice. Let's try to keep discussion civil as best as we can. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and this is just a game; we're all here to have fun.

 

I think both you and Marshmallow nailed the issues/concerns and also posted very reasonable and viable suggestions.

 

I rolled an operative specifically to play concealment and it makes me sad that it is not a competitive pvp spec. I believe the 3 things that can make the spec good in ranked pvp are:

 

1) Hidden Strike Proc out of stealth

Change calculated frenzy with a new 3 park skill point that reads: When you deal damage with Shiv or Lacerate you have a 15%/30%/45% to activate Calculated Frenzy (or another name), which makes your Hidden Strike usable out of Stealth and cost 0 energy. Jarring Strike will not apply with Hidden Strike is used with Calculated Frenzy. This ability can only occur once every 18 seconds. Each rank beyond the first reduces this rate limit by 3 seconds.

 

2) Add an 8 second temporary vanish

Change Culling to a one point Skill, and replace Revitalizers with this one point skill:

Supercharged Stealth

Supercharges your Stealth Belt to immediately place you in Supercharged Stealth for 8 seconds. Supercharged Stealth does not break when you take damage. Supercharged Stealth does not remove you from combat, but allows the use of Hidden Strike. After the 8 seconds expire you are removed from Stealth. 45 second cooldown.

 

3) A Healing Debuff

Add to the Acid Blade Skill: Additionally Targets affected by your Acid Blade receive 30% less healing.

 

Miscellaneous Notes

A more widespread use of healing will inherently nerf Operative healing and lead to more deaths in Warzones, both of which are needed.

 

Shield Probe is a joke of a 45 second cooldown.

 

Explosive Probe has a niche role in operative DPS, but is slightly awkward because of its high energy cost and cover requirement. I think allowing the use of explosive probe during stealth is not an outrageous suggestion but I may be wrong.

[SandsS]

Medicine Operative -- My primary spec in PvE and PvP since launch.

 

We received a lot of buffs in 2.0, one of the most interesting (to me, as a long-time Operative healer) was the change in Stim Boost. It no longer costs TA to use and is now more of an Alacrity cooldown than anything (like Sorc's Polarity Shift). Our energy regeneration is now (natively) 6/sec as opposed to 5/sec to accommodate the changes to Stim Boost. In addition, Kolto Infusion was modified to include a HoT component after the initial cast. What was even more mind-boggling to me was that the HoTs on both KInf and Recuperative Nanotech were further modified to proc TA. The changes to Alacrity (although they resulted in longer casts on channeled abilities) resulted in shorter GCDs for instants like Surgical Probe and Kolto Probe.

 

Summary result of these changes: Kolto Probe can now be cast freely at high levels of energy, we have a surplus of Tactical Advantage, and it is possible to completely cut Kolto Injection (formerly a bread-and-butter skill) out of a healing priority/rotation because there are so may new ways to generate TA.

 

Mostly, I just want to know what the combat team's view is on the current balance between healers. I'd like to know more about what they were intending to accomplish with those buffs, whether or not it was accomplished (or more than accomplished!), and their views on "no cost" Kolto Probes.

 

In my opinion, although the spec is performing well, it's in a bit of a weird place because of how many changes were made at once. I'm worried that -- in unraveling the new concerns about balance -- we might lose sight of why the old changes were made in the first place. I'm not sure how many people still remember or keep track of what the "native" weaknesses of Operative healers tend(ed) to be.

 

A bit of history for anyone who might be interested:

 

 

The whole reason Medicine operatives were buffed to three TA in the first place was because it used to cost TA to gain the effects of Stim Boost. This lead to a great devil's bargain early in TOR history between saving lives, gaining energy at a faster (required!) rate, and maintaining the buff (TA) that had to be up in order for us to be as strong as other healers.

 

Although Operatives tested as "equivalent" in terms of potential healing, the math was based on the faulty assumption that we'd have 100% or near 100% uptime on both Stim Boost and Tactical Advantage. At the time we had only (2) stacks of Tactical Advantage as well as a shorter uptime on the TA buff and a (proportionally) higher cost on Kolto Probe. Optimum rotations at this point involved continuous casting to stay properly buffed in order to keep healing "on par" with other classes that were not dependent on TA procs.

 

It was hellish -- most serious progression healers I knew re-rolled as Sorcs in 1.0.

 

Fast-forward a bit -- the uptime of TA was lengthened and we were granted the ability to hold (3) TA stacks. This was a major QoL improvement and put us back on track at or near the release of Denova/Explosive Conflict.

 

Edited July 31, 2013 by SandsS

[Gondolindhrim]

Shield Probe is a joke of a 45 second cooldown.

I'd like to see a skill in the Concealment tree that adds a secondary effect to Shield Probe, reducing incoming damage by a moderate amount. I'd say at least -25% incoming damage for 8s (this is similar to Blackout for Deception Assassins). Personally, I would replace Revitalizers with this.

 

Explosive Probe has a niche role in operative DPS, but is slightly awkward because of its high energy cost and cover requirement. I think allowing the use of explosive probe during stealth is not an outrageous suggestion but I may be wrong.

Yeah, it always irritated me that Explosive Probe initiates combat in PvE, too. Most of all I'd like to see the energy cost reduced though.

[Griad]

Explosive probe without the crouch/cover requirement and hidden strike out of stealth in some sneaky way would go along way for drawn out fights or boss fights

[LoadingSpace]

How about a 30% reduction in damage taken whilst stunned? Or a reduction in aoe damage to try reduce smash basically. Thoughts?

[snave]

I can't say I really care about the crouch requirement for explosive probe, it gets you into the habit of crouching which is good for when you need to heal or kite plus it's not on the GCD so you can easily weave it in to your rotation with out losing anything.

 

Acid blade giving a healing debuff is a fantastic idea and would certainly make us more viable in ranked where this type of ability would shine when used with coordinated DPS and it would also help us kill healers in under 10 minutes. I think changes to acid blade would be a nice quick fix to the spec really, remove it's cost, put a heal debuff on it and if they're not going to remove it's cost please make it so you can't apply it when it's already applied. It's a learn to play issue for me but because of the old mechanic I keep reapplying it before I go in to combat which wastes energy but I accept that's a play issue rather than a mechanical one.

 

From reading all these threads it seems like the entire community is asking for similar changes to the spec which is reassuring and I don't see many of the suggestions being over powered or an attempt to get the class to become over powered which is nice

 

Still for me it's a real shame these questions aren't even getting put forward until October : /

[platinumruggo]

I wouldn't remove the cost, so much as reducing it. There's no reason it should cost so much energy just to apply the damn effect.

[quantez]

Anyone knows how much damages the shield probe actually absorbs? What is a "moderate amount"? And what is a moderate amount + 30% ?