Class Rep is here!

[mfourcustom]

Sorry guys I've been busy with some IRL crap the past few days anyway on to business!

 

So, I want input from all you guys on what you think our first round of three questions should be to the combat team. I know the vanguard class is lacking in both PvP and PvE I would like the first round of questions to try and hit on all points not just PVP ( i know a lot of the PvPers have spoken out much more tha the PvE players) but I don't want to leave the PVE players hanging in the dark on the first round of questions though i feel many of the problems with the class in terms of DPS apply to both PvE and PvP... So as I said i need your input on what our first three questions should be Feel to PM me here on the forums or just post here in this thread I am mostly a PvP player these days but I wont leave the PvE players in the dark our class faces many problems but as VANGUARDS UNITED!!! ( yes that's cheesy as hell) I hope we can fix things on all fronts!

 

 

Thanks guys.

 

-Banksy

Edited July 30, 2013 by mfourcustom

[ChaoticDynamite]

1. As it stands right now most players both PvE and PvP choose hybrids over full builds in the Assault Specialist and Tactics trees what can we expect to see done to the top tier abilities to make them more worthwhile for players?

 

2. Tactics top tier talent Fire Pulse is on a 15 sec cooldown but does so little damage can we expect to see either a shortage on Fire Pulses cooldown or a damage increase?

 

P.S. this is coming from someone who mainly PvPs so take it as you like.

[TheOneWag]

1. Currently almost no one takes Plastique or the top end of the Assault tree due to how low the damage is for a 36 pt talent, and the survivability / support talents in the Assault tree are very weak, making full Assault builds very rare - especially in PVP. It is widely considered to be a broken tree for PVP and PVE, most players only dabbling in it to make hybrids. How is this going to be addressed?

 

2. We are widely considered to be one of the least competitive classes in serious PVP due to lack of burst damage as DPS, lack of survival tools comparative to other classes as Tank, and overall lackluster abilities in comparison to other classes who are performing the same roles of Tanking or DPS. The general consensus is "a Vanguard can do that, but a Guardian / Sentinel / etc can do it better". With arenas around the corner and very few people looking to take Vanguards or PTs on their team due to how poorly we competitively preform, how are you going to address Vanguards offering something worthwhile in competitive PVP?

 

3. Are there any plans to have Adrenaline rush heal past 30% for non-tanks? Currently holding us inside of 30% holds us at execute range, making the ability very weak for PVP, as popping a stim to try and save yourself from an execute just negates pushing the button altogether.

[Oayarc]

On my phone and can't link, but please take a look at the powertech forums. They have been brainstorming the best way to word the questions to ensure we don't get a canned response of "working as intended". Other than that I look forward to bringing to light the underlying issues of the vanguard / PT.

[Davionix]

I would like to know how combat team came up with set bonuses for both our pve and pvp gear and why they did not think to change them at 2.0 like they did to several other classes ?

 

We are not unique in there and some classes had their set bonuses changed a bit with 2.0 but ours is still the same. For some ACs pvp set bonuses are better for pve and vice versa.

 

For us both pvp and pve combat tech set bonuses seem lackluster with people usually preferring eliminator set bonus over combat tech one. ( I have for a long time insisted on using combat tech set bonus for pvp only to give up and take the easy road of getting eliminator set )

 

For pve, Battle Focus is a burst cooldown much like Zen is for sentinels so you want to synchronize with power clicky relic, shoulder cannons and ammo conservation cooldowns so you end not using battle focus as soon as it is off cooldown, thus negating the effects of the set bonus. Going from that example, 4-piece set bonus for sentinels used to be a bit redundant as well but it was changed to give extra % damage every time it is used so that there is actually a reason to go for it now.

 

Sage dps pve 2 piece set bonus was changed at 2.0 as well to include a reduction in cooldown of one of their version of burst cooldown ( mental alacrity ) but that was added on top the already existing 2 piece set bonus which is more or less of some use even if the reduced cooldown of the ability may not be utilized all the time the original effect of 2 piece set bonus is still there as well so even though their marginal gains may not have been that high they have not lost anything either.

 

Granted that it is not a huge gamebreaker and at most you have to wait only 15 seconds at most for relic to get off cooldown and you can choose not to use a click relic anyway.

 

In summary what I am trying to say is that, combat tech 2 piece set bonus for class seems so clunky and out of place as it has been since launch while other classes have undergone some changes ( some good some bad and some not that much effective ). Is this because combat team can not find a way to tweak it a bit without making us too op or they believe vanguard / powertech mechanics/gamestyle has not changed much despite of the several changes to skill trees and other changes related to class ?

Edited July 30, 2013 by Davionix

[ScytheEleven]

Keep in mind when asking these questions:

 

- If you ask something like "xxx move is terrible. Can you increase the damage?", you will get a very simple, un-detailed response of (most likely) "NO".

 

- If you say "My class is weak in PVP (or PVE). Do you plan on making it better?", you will get a response of (most likely) "You're class is fine in this regard, next question".

 

Back up your questions with pulled data so that they can compare it to their data. I know FeralPug is looking to pull the composition of the top ranked teams in the game to find out how represented PT/VGs are (and their roles).

 

I know many people are frustrated with Pyro, a better question would be:

 

When examining the DPS leaderboards via TorParse for HM/NiM operations, the highest DPSing PT/VG is always a Hybrid spec, which opts out of top tier talents from Tactics/AP and Assault/Pyro. Do your metrics support this finding as well? If so, was this hybrid intended to outperform full tree builds? If not, what can be done to make a player invest 36 points into Tactics/AP or Assault/Pyro?

[TheOneWag]

Back up your questions with pulled data

 

Lol, not trying to insult but I work 40 hours a week and have other hobbies.

 

Guess I'll just hope that someone has enough free time to run a bunch of parses and make a presentation to get Van / PT to be more fun and involve less hair-pulling frustration stemming from being second class in virtually every regard.

[ScytheEleven]

Lol, not trying to insult but I work 40 hours a week and have other hobbies.

 

Guess I'll just hope that someone has enough free time to run a bunch of parses and make a presentation to get Van / PT to be more fun and involve less hair-pulling frustration stemming from being second class in virtually every regard.

 

Oh believe me, I wasn't trying to be rude. "Pulled data" can be as simple as compiling a list of the top parsing PTs/VG's from TorParse from HM/NiM operations, and then listing their numbers and specs. I'm not suggesting that anyone go all crazy math statistics with this stuff

 

I just think that if back our questions up with reasonable proof/data, we will get better responses from the combat team. If we just say "No one takes Assault Plastique. What can you do to make it better?", they could counter with "Our numbers show that people do take AP. It's good as it is". BioWare goes off of their own numbers, I'm just saying we try and compare what we see to what they see...maybe get them to see where we are coming from.

[Mr_Fuzzle]

As someone who has played Tactics and Assault (Tactics more to be honest even before 2.0) and has subsequently grown horribly frustrated with the class as a dps, I think that some tweaks to the skill trees are definitely in order to fix the problems that people are having and to accomplish Bioware's goal of discouraging hybrid builds. Since the highest parsing VGs and PTs are the 2/22/22 hybrid, with Tactics trailing and Assault in the rear (just take a look at the PVE DPS competition thread), some questions have to be asked.

 

Starting with Tactics, the removal of the Surge bonus to Ion Pulse was implemented. This made a lot of people unhappy and was widely regarded as a bad move. However, moving it to the Assault tree did help alleviate some of the nerf they took (trust me it would have been way worse without this). Ion Pulse is one of the bigger contributors to Tactics DPS and a buff to this ability would help bring this class more in line with the other DPS classes. Would the developers consider adding in (perhaps to the Charged Loaders talent) something that raises the Crit chance of Ion Pulse by 2 or 3% for each point in there? I feel that this would provide a decent damage boost and make this class more viable for all content.

 

Next up comes Assault for me, this spec needs a damage boost, a return of some burst and incentive to take Assault Plastique. It's quite clear the developers do not want AP to be returned to its former state, providing a good amount of burst. My question now becomes, can there be something tied to AP in order to recover that burst and make it an attractive talent? What I'm thinking is make the DoT from AP either uncleansable or give it a weak version of itself when cleansed similar to Gunslingers and Sages. At the same time, add something to one of the talents that increases the Crit chance of High Impact Bolt and Ion Pulse for say, 6 seconds after AP is applied. Again, this is only an idea but I think you see what I'm getting at. So the question I would ask is how do you change AP without reverting to the former talent while making it attractive for both PVE and PVP?

[Luckeyduckey]

Hey Banksy. I think Jerc (FeralPug) was interested in talking about the state of our class. I'd suggest talking to him, and taking a look at the PT thread as well. Glad that you got rep. I enjoyed your video about Vanguard Balancing.

[ScruffyWhite]

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Edited November 23, 2018 by ScruffyWhite

[foxmob]

I'm not sure if you've kept up with the commando version of this post, but the major issue for dps is the same since it's for the shared tree: the capstone talent is useless. that's a sign of a weak class. as you know, you do more dmg by forgoing TD and taking more buffs to elemental & stance/cell.

 

so I'd express my concern that neither tactics nor assault has any burst, the shared tree's capstone isn't worth taking, and despite all of that, the middle tree parses lower overall dmg. then I'd ask them what they see when they look at the performance of these specs in-game, as they have access to much more data than we do as individuals. perhaps, since this is a question, we can ask if either spec is performing to expectations and exactly what those expectations are?

 

as for tanking...can we please haz instance stance switch like every other tanking AC in the game? being unable to channel a stance switch makes our abundance of ammo rather useless. how about making the switch instant and cost resources like every other AC?

 

lastly, a possible tactics question: how, exactly, is tactics *supposed* to work? this is a fair question because, in the past, a dev did take the time to explain how they intended another underperforming class to work (deception/infiltration).

Edited July 30, 2013 by foxmob

[Fellow-Canadian]

My observations and suggestions for improvement of the Vanguard PVP experience:

 

Assault Spec:

 

• Squishy spec as it has negligible survivability talents. ( 2% defense and 15% DR on dots)
  
• Dot damage gets cleaned and it's costly to put them back up. The spec needs cleanse protection or ammo reduction costs.
  
• 30% snare is not good enough. It needs to be 50% like all other melee classes and last longer than 2 seconds.
  
• Adrenaline fueled is a garbage talent just because adrenaline rush heals for so little. Would be a nice change if the talent was changed to allow the Vanguard to cheat death for 6 seconds upon it activating.
  
• Return of 30m range on incendiary round
  
• Cleansing assault plastique should cause the explosive to detonate all of its dot damage at once
  
• In it's current form this spec makes the trooper a liability in PVP because the dots can be cleansed and plays like a glass cannon.
  

 

Tactics

• Good survivability talents (30% DR from AE and while being stunned, CD reduction on reactive shield + 20% absorb shield chance, increased hold the line duration)
  
• Good utility (Several CD reduction talents)
  
• Good ammo efficiency
  
• No burst capability. However, the spec is great at applying constant pressure damage.
  
• Reliance on a beefed up pulse cannon is difficult to use in PVP. You can stun targets or pop hold the line to ensure your target eats the full duration, but against any competent opponent they will knock you back or stun immediately. Talent should change so the trooper at 3 stacks may cast an instant ability that applies the damage as a dot instead of a channel.
  
• Fire Pulse damage should be buffed by 40-60% and have it's cooldown reduced.
  
• Gut dot damage is negligible and it's damage should be increased. Gut snare duration should be increased to 8-10seconds.
  
• Currently the best PVP spec (imo) simply due to the increased survivability.
  

Edited July 30, 2013 by Fellow-Canadian

[mfourcustom]

Thanks a lot or all the input so far guys!

 

Keep it coming!

 

 

Also i want your feedback on this idea but i was going to write out our three questions this weekend and test post them here to see what you guys think of them what i could do better with them so on and so forth please let me know if you think that's a good idea or not. We have a while before we even need our questions ready (August 18) is our turn for our questions to be answered by the combat team I just feel it'll be a good idea to get my test questions posted up here and let you guys have at them since time is in our favor that way we have the best three questions ready to go!

 

Thanks again everyone.

-Banksy

Edited July 31, 2013 by mfourcustom

[foxmob]

FYI: the issues with Assault spec, specifically assault plastique/thermal detonator, seem to be the major issue for our ranged cousins (mandos/mercs). I've suggested cashogy get in touch with the VG/PT reps, and I'm doing it here.

 

my concerns are these:

• would it be better for all FOUR ACs to ask about the capstone ability's uselessness?
  
• would it be better for only one AC to ask so that others can ask about other things?
  

• 
  

[Mikroswitch]

WTB Motar Volley/Death From Above with a zero casting range for it, so annoying when tanking you find it takes to long to get it to go "green" to actually bother using when you have your back against a wall ^^

 

(Yes I know it isn't much but the easiest ones will probably get fixed first)

Edited July 31, 2013 by Mikroswitch

[Zoom_VI]

Shield spec

 

Right now guardian tanks do everything a VG tank can do and do it better. Gaurdian have almost identical passive mitigation, more DCDs, and better utilities than VG tanks for both PvP and pve, what is BW going to do to give VGs some unique niche that would teams a reason to perhaps take a VG over a guardian?

[mfourcustom]

Shield spec

 

Right now guardian tanks do everything a VG tank can do and do it better. Gaurdian have almost identical passive mitigation, more DCDs, and better utilities than VG tanks for both PvP and pve, what is BW going to do to give VGs some unique niche that would teams a reason to perhaps take a VG over a guardian?

 

Agreed 100 percent in some of my early post on the outset of 2.0 i would constantly touch on the fact that vanguard tanks bring nothing to the table that the other two tanking classes don't .... I always say shadow tanks are like a sleek sports car Gauridain tanks are like F-15 jets and vanguard tanks are like literary TANKS lol we are slow cumbersome and that's about it... lol

[X-Boson]

My suggestions for DPS and survivability improvement for Hybrid/Assault PvP and PvE:

 

 

1. Reduce ammo cost of Incendiary Round and Ion Pulse to make DPS of Assault/Hybrid more sustainable. In my Opinion, damage of these abilities should be (slightly) increased as well. Further duration of DoT from Plasma Cell should be increased. Because they are (or should be) most used in Hybrid and Assault. Otherwise it is really unfair compared against DoTs from other classes, e.g. slinger/sniper. Speak of hard data, say as Hybrid sniper, even without boost from Weakening Blast, Corrosive Grenade and Corrosive Dart have not only much higher flexibility, but also much higher Damage per GCD than any DoT from a vanguard. Speak of a WZ game, a Leth/Hybrid sniper can easily spread his poisons on everyone in each corner and then do burst dmg on a target. A vanguard in contrast has neither enough ammo nor mobility to DoT everyone, not to mention his survivability during this process.
    
    
    
   
2. Reduce CD of Reactive Shield and Adrenaline Rush dramatically. Otherwise it is really unfair compared against survivability of all other classes. For example Sith Marauder has Undying Rage, Clock of Pain and Saber Ward for damage reduction. Jedi Guardian has Saber Reflect, Enure, Focused Defense and Saber Ward. Slinger/Sniper additionally many CCs with short CD to make every melee cries out loudly. Same for all other classes.
   

 

 

 

Its no big deal for dev team to fix these problems. Im sure they have much better tools (or even simulator) than a simple spreadsheet for calculation.

Edited July 31, 2013 by X-Boson

[ZeroPlus]

Just a reminder:

This is to "ask 3 questions". This is not to "make 3 suggestions". If you do have a suggestion, phrase it as a question (and make it a good question )).

[Justcae]

1. What is the reasoning behind being the only tank with "flight-time" on our taunts?

 

2. When are VG's going to get an additional CD pertaining to a minmum of F/T? Hoping for more, but love being the only tank without some form of F/T immunity.

 

3. Why are Vanguards the only tanking class without a sub-30% move?

[Kitru]

[*]Reduce CD of Reactive Shield and Adrenaline Rush dramatically. Otherwise it is really unfair compared against survivability of all other classes.

 

Having Adrenaline Rush and Reactive Shield up more often isn't equivalent to having a crapton of CDs. First off, the reason why said massive suite of CDs is amazing is because they can either be spaced out or used one-after-the-other.

 

Secondly, Reactive Shield is, post-2.0, actually a *really* ****** tank CD thanks to its disgustingly long CD (18 seconds when everything else is 12 at best). Shortening the CD isn't likely and it doesn't even address the issue you're attempting to address.

 

The problems with Adrenaline Rush are with the implementation, not the CD. Reducing the CD wouldn't make it more valuable because it would still be implemented terribly.

 

The issue with VG CDs isn't that they're not *good* enough. Individually, they're actually plenty strong when used properly (Adrenaline Rush's primary weakness being that it's *way* too hard to manage to use "properly" thanks to the implementation). The problem with them is that, as a suite, they're weak because *there are too few of them*. The *number* needs to be addressed, not how often they can be used.

[foxmob]

Having Adrenaline Rush and Reactive Shield up more often isn't equivalent to having a crapton of CDs. First off, the reason why said massive suite of CDs is amazing is because they can either be spaced out or used one-after-the-other.

 

Secondly, Reactive Shield is, post-2.0, actually a *really* ****** tank CD thanks to its disgustingly long CD (18 seconds when everything else is 12 at best). Shortening the CD isn't likely and it doesn't even address the issue you're attempting to address.

 

The problems with Adrenaline Rush are with the implementation, not the CD. Reducing the CD wouldn't make it more valuable because it would still be implemented terribly.

 

The issue with VG CDs isn't that they're not *good* enough. Individually, they're actually plenty strong when used properly (Adrenaline Rush's primary weakness being that it's *way* too hard to manage to use "properly" thanks to the implementation). The problem with them is that, as a suite, they're weak because *there are too few of them*. The *number* needs to be addressed, not how often they can be used.

 

agreed. I'm pretty sure my smash jugg has as many dcds as my shield VG does (3).

[Mathemagica]

Shield spec

 

Right now guardian tanks do everything a VG tank can do and do it better. Gaurdian have almost identical passive mitigation, more DCDs, and better utilities than VG tanks for both PvP and pve, what is BW going to do to give VGs some unique niche that would teams a reason to perhaps take a VG over a guardian?

 

I have read this quite often since 2.0. I would like to suggest an extension of your question (because more information can never hurt, right?). It goes as follows:

Vanguards are often perceived as worst tanks, the argument being that whatever they can do, another tank class can do it better. (By now Shadows are usually excluded from this statement, but that has nothing to do with class changes, so the point still stands.)

How do you (the combat team) perceive the three tanking classes compared to each other in terms of all aspects of tanking? Are you happy with it and why/why not? If not, what ideas are you currently playing with?

 

 

Playing a Powertech tank in both PVP and PVE I think that they can do a lot and are up to their job. Nevertheless, like most of you, I have a wishlist of changes about the amount of our defensive cooldowns (and the cooldown of shoulder cannon). Instead of asking for such changes however, I'd rather ask about the ideas the combat team currently has. We can still provide our own suggestions in the class feedback threads.

[X-Boson]

 

The problems with Adrenaline Rush are with the implementation, not the CD. Reducing the CD wouldn't make it more valuable because it would still be implemented terribly.

 

The issue with VG CDs isn't that they're not *good* enough. Individually, they're actually plenty strong when used properly (Adrenaline Rush's primary weakness being that it's *way* too hard to manage to use "properly" thanks to the implementation). The problem with them is that, as a suite, they're weak because *there are too few of them*. The *number* needs to be addressed, not how often they can be used.

 

Yeah, sadly pretty true. As I listed before, actually all other classes have more survive CDs than vanguard. The problem I see here is that the dev team probably wont be able to implement some new abilities within the frame of this project. It will take very very long from a problem-solving approach to a final decision. After all its not easy to secure a majority of vote. Thats why I said "Its no big deal". Im not asking for some new designs atm, but redesigns anytime soon. In my opinion vanguard´s current survive CDs should be reduced anyway. Independently, if there will be some new abilities in the future (hope there will be sometime).

 

Adrenaline Rush is actually not bad. Its very good against DoTs, but simply useless against 6k+ burst dmg. However Adrenaline Rush is no match against CD like sith marauder´s Undying Rage, neither in CD nor in performance. Speak of performance, its probably a question of taste at this point. I consider Undying Rage or Force Shroud (from Assassin) rather as offensive CD. With these you can leave a lot of destructions around you, even u wont survive later. Thats what a DD should have. In other words, 5 seconds (or even 3 seconds) are actually long enough for them to kill someone at 50% HP. Adrenaline Rush in contrast is rather defensive by nature. Instead of Hold-Your-Ground u have to kite or run away until back in HP.

Edited August 1, 2013 by X-Boson