Why the consular/inquisitor nerf to force wave?

[Malastare]

I tend to disagree that the effective area FW/OL now covers is greater, It is a lot less. At its current state. its 15 meter cone in front, when pre nerf it used to be a 360 degree 30 meter ... range.

 

Seriously? You thought FW/OL was pushing people back at sniper range? You couldn't have been using it much. The range was much smaller. Could I say if it was 8m or 5m? Probably not, but it was no more than 10m for sure, and the pushback was weak.

 

That was the whole point of the change. They replaced a weak, short-range pushback with a medium/strong pushback focused in a single direction. This is described well by:

 

Nerf? The effective area it covers is greater, it became more focused, more controllable and its range tripled. I consider it a buff, at worst it is a fair exchange.

 

This.

 

When I first heard of it, I was worried that they had just cut the area by 66%. Actually playing it was a different experience. The old version mostly just pushed mobs outside melee range. The new version gives them a good toss and doesn't require you to be right on top of them. The cone isn't terribly small, so it can be used for things like marking a whole mob-group (to prevent kill-stealing) without rushing into the middle of them like an idiot or tossing a few stragglers into an AoE field.

 

The only down-sides I've found is that the push is actually a bit stronger than optimum for Shadows/Assassins. It's not uncommon to hit a target with this and have them pushed outside the 10m range of most of your ranged abilities. Before the change, I was using it as a weak interrupt, since I could hit it and immediately hit Lightning/Throw. The new versions tosses many mobs too far. This is easily adapted to, however, by simply running forward while using FW/OL. You'll usually be in range by the end of the GCD. The second down-side has mostly disappeared by now: Until I (and others) had adjusted to the new range/toss-distance, the ability could screw up some battlefield management efforts, either by waking up CCed mobs who wouldn't have been in range of the old ability, or by tossing them off ledges and having them do whatever buggy non-lethal-fall behavior that area used.

 

I suspect the reason that it was removed was indeed part of a PvP balancing effort. At that point, trying to backstab a Sage/Sorc was difficult to say the least. With a 360 pushback on short cooldown, they could push an attacker back as quickly as an attacker could close the distance again. It gave skilled Sage/Sorcs very few weaknesses.

 

Changing the ability gave them a minor weakness from behind, but gave all the Consular/Inquisitors a better utility ability for leveling, and supporting a play-style that actually matched the light-armor/force-user style.

[oaceen]

ok, this is how it worked in PvE for me before the change...

i used a Shadow back then and my brother used a Sentinel, i'd cloak in move to the healer, backstab them drawing the group to me, my brother would Force Leap in and Force Sweep the group, less than a second later i would use Force Wave and send the entire group flying in all directions... at this point the enemy group is effectively gimped by almost half and scattered, making it easy to pick them off before they even got a chance to gang back up... since then i've had to change and adapt my strategy, but i feel the way we did it was the way it was originally intended... now it has lost most of its effectiveness unless you line up properly, it can't be done from the center of the group anymore...

moreover it was a great panic button when you encountered a little too much resistance giving you the edge to make a hasty retreat...

 

i think you're missing the point of force wave.

 

knocking people out of being grouped up means no AOE. as someone who plays a dps, a tank, and a healer, i can say that any person who runs in and uses their knockback to break up a pack of grouped mobs is just hindering the group's ability to take them down.

[LordArtemis]

The point that I was making was that the current skill has it's uses and works pretty well for PVP. The old skill was iconic for the class and really only worked fairly in PVE.

 

So, they could have keep the old skill the way it was, including the animation, disabled it in PVP, and then added in the current skill under a different name that could be used in PVP.

 

That way players would not have lost their iconic ability and animation...worried about folks using both in PVE situations that might overpower them? Put them on the same cooldown.

 

If a solution is needed (I think so but that is speculative naturally) This is what I would suggest they do.....

1) Leave the current ability as it is, but change it's animation to a instant push animation instead with one hand.

2) Create a new ability with the old animation, timed to fire when the animation ends, with a reduced range 360 knockback like original ability was in the first place. Disable it in PVP (simply make players immune to it). Place it on the same cooldown as the current animation.

 

This would give players back the old ability with the iconic "fire when completed" slam animation, under a different name, and it could not be abused in PVP. You would have a choice as to which one you want to use...so everybody wins.

[Blackardin]

Nerf? The effective area it covers is greater, it became more focused, more controllable and its range tripled. I consider it a buff, at worst it is a fair exchange.

 

Agree, very much so. It is more focused, greater outward range, more useful now to me.

 

Give it a try, OP. Short learning curve, big benefit overall.

[Malastare]

So, they could have keep the old skill the way it was, including the animation, disabled it in PVP, and then added in the current skill under a different name that could be used in PVP.

 

That way players would not have lost their iconic ability and animation...worried about folks using both in PVE situations that might overpower them? Put them on the same cooldown.

 

I don't intend this as a personal insult, but this is pretty bad game design.

 

Why do we want the old version? Is it better in PvE? It's a weaker directional push. It's only advantage is in explicitly breaking up grouped mobs, which is very rarely useful. In most cases, you'd want to group mobs tighter, and for that, the new version is slightly better. In PvP, it gives you some backstab prevention and a quick-cooldown annoyance/deprivation usage (when a pair of Sage/Sorcs hang out in a tunnel), which you already concede to disable.

 

So, why do we want it back? Why are we creating PvE and PvP versions of an ability.... forcing players to swap abilities based on situation?

 

Because of the cooler animation? Seriously?

 

That's not a good way to design games. Requesting a cooler animation is fine. Just ask for that. Making copies of abilities with specific situational usage... no... that's just an example of why most people here aren't designing games.

[LordArtemis]

I don't intend this as a personal insult, but this is pretty bad game design.

 

Why do we want the old version? Is it better in PvE? It's a weaker directional push. It's only advantage is in explicitly breaking up grouped mobs, which is very rarely useful. In most cases, you'd want to group mobs tighter, and for that, the new version is slightly better. In PvP, it gives you some backstab prevention and a quick-cooldown annoyance/deprivation usage (when a pair of Sage/Sorcs hang out in a tunnel), which you already concede to disable.

 

So, why do we want it back? Why are we creating PvE and PvP versions of an ability.... forcing players to swap abilities based on situation?

 

Because of the cooler animation? Seriously?

 

That's not a good way to design games. Requesting a cooler animation is fine. Just ask for that. Making copies of abilities with specific situational usage... no... that's just an example of why most people here aren't designing games.

 

I don't take it as an insult. We just simply disagree. It was bad game design to change it in the first place in the way that it was done, and it pretty commonly accepted across the entire market that making changes for one type of gameplay that effects another type of gameplay is almost always a toxic change.

 

Make copies of abilities with specific situational usage describes most of the current abilities in the game. So naturally it is a yes IMO, not a no.

 

Yes, seriously...iconic ability and better animation is EXACTLY the reason to bring it back.

 

And I'd be careful about throwing around accusations that folks here do not design games, nor did they ever work on current games in the market. I think you would be surprised at just how many devs from other games play this game.

 

...and make suggestions.

 

Remember, this is just my opinion. It is not meant to be the last word, or an attempt to diminish your opinion. Just pointing out the stark contrast in how we view things.

Edited August 12, 2013 by LordArtemis

[fellblade]

I'd be happier if they just removed it so I could stop having people use it in flashpoints/ops because they're terrible.

 

Lol - I agree

 

Seriously - Virtually Every time I use a Master Strike with my Vengeance(Vigilance?) Guardian, There is some Sage or Shadow (on my team) that knocks my target back after (or sometimes during or before) the second hit.....

(and I actually work for opportune moments to set the delivery up....I just don't spam it when it's off cooldown)

 

Strangely enough it doesn't seem to happen on my Sith Warrior....but that's probably because the rest of my team are chasing people in the middle of nowhere instead of fighting (at least within line of sight of) the objectives like they should be....

[Elly_Dawn]

i think you're missing the point of force wave.

 

knocking people out of being grouped up means no AOE. as someone who plays a dps, a tank, and a healer, i can say that any person who runs in and uses their knockback to break up a pack of grouped mobs is just hindering the group's ability to take them down.

 

on the contrary, i know exactly what i was doing, i was using an uncommon strategy that most people would pass off as foolish, but in essence worked for us better than anyone here may expect... it may seem crazy to send the group flying in multiple directions thus reducing AoE opportunities but when you have next to no AoE skills it works quite well, especially if it's the last AoE you fire off in your rotation... thus making the stragglers that didn't die from the opening salvo easy pickings that die in 1 or 2 hits... as i said it's a strategy that worked for us your mileage may vary...

i also don't just go off firing it off at random when the cooldown finishes, i use strategy, you gotta know when to use it and when not to...

Edited August 12, 2013 by Elly_Dawn

[MillionsKNives]

on the contrary, i know exactly what i was doing, i was using an uncommon strategy that most people would pass off as foolish, but in essence worked for us better than anyone here may expect... it may seem crazy to send the group flying in multiple directions thus reducing AoE opportunities but when you have next to no AoE skills it works quite well, especially if it's the last AoE you fire off in your rotation... thus making the stragglers that didn't die from the opening salvo easy pickings that die in 1 or 2 hits... as i said it's a strategy that worked for us your mileage may vary...

i also don't just go off firing it off at random when the cooldown finishes, i use strategy, you gotta know when to use it and when not to...

 

What advantage does it actually give you? At best it interrupts them for a brief moment before they either begin shooting at you again or run back to you in less than a GCD and continue hitting you, and does pitiful damage. In addition, you now have to run around to go kill them instead of doing it all in one place.

[Elly_Dawn]

like i said, by the end of our rotation most of the opposing party is dead, after that it's just picking off the remainder that survived the original onslaught of AoE effects before firing off the FW/OL, simple 1 or 2 hit kills... i don't go running around either, they come back to me in a staggered fashion usualy and die one by one as they approach... of course there's ranged attackers but, hello force pull...

i find it amusing that i find strategies that are a bit unconventional but work really well for my team yet someone has to try to tell me i'm doing it wrong, if i'm doing it wrong then why does it work?..

Edited August 12, 2013 by Elly_Dawn

[Sangrar]

Yeah to start off I didn't notice this earlier because I haven't played on my consular in a long while, been focused on my trooper and smuggler for most of this time. Anyway I appreciate all the replies I have gotten here to my question. I honestly thought it was a new thing that happened and not something from 1.5. Meanwhile I agree with the concept now that I know about the range I just wish it still had the old animation, you know, just as I wish project had its old animation. Seriously though I will give anything to have that animation back, I mean projects animation was screwed up supposedly to save us time between the object being raised and then it actually hitting the target, but I honestly don't see how that saves much more than a quarter of a second and will gladly give that time up to get it back.

[Sangrar]

I've met so many random Sages that act as if Force Wave were their only/best/most useful AoE heal, completely ignoring that they've got Salvation *and* how Force Wave is a pretty terrible heal from any perspective. The "KBs also heal" talents made me facepalm *so* hard when I saw them because I knew it would only make them use the KBs that many of them *already* overused and used poorly even more often.

 

 

wait force wave isn't the aoe heal for sages, I think you got it confused with something else.

[MidichIorian]

I guess they came to the conclusion that too many were playing sorcs and sages so they decided to destroy a lot of aspects of the class. Here are some examples of what's been going on since launch:

 

*Nerf to our good procs

*Nerf to 360 KB

*Nerf to stun range, which makes no sense when our effective range, as a ranged AC, is atleast 30 meters

*Nerf to WW by making it a channeled ability, even when speced in to.

*Nerf to armor rating, on a light armor class. Makes no sense at all.

 

So as a healer, madness or heavy madness hybrid you have a maximum of one stun, on atleast a 50 s CD, and a root. A lot of sorcs/sages have taken WW off their quickbars or replaced their keyboard location due to how rare it is that we get it off, you literally never get it off on an enemy that is focusing you unless you waste the stun first and ultimately fill their resolve bar. And this is all on a class with light armor, far from the best burst in the game and not the best sustained output.

 

Predictions for upcoming class re-balancing:

*1 minute CD on force speed

*1 minute CD on bubble + losing the ability to bubble team mates

*CD on force lightning, even when speced in to in the madness tree

 

I wouldnt be surprised by any nerf they possibly could come up with at this point.

[Nempo]

You sure you thought it was 30m? You realize that 30m is the max range of all sage/sorc attacks, that would be absolutely insane. You could clear an entire battlefield with that range. You had to be thinking of a different number.

 

 

 

Agreed, I can't stand when people use knockbacks against groups of adds, unless they're well aimed and actually condense the group instead of spreading it out. But that rarely happens, it's usually some healer (especially since knockbacks can be specc'd to heal) or derpy DPS who wanders over and ends up knocking the adds all away from the tank and/or DPS. As a tank that means I can't get aggro on them anymore from my AOEs, and end up losing a few to the healer/DPS. As a DPS that means that my big AOEs also can't hit, and we have to single target down what was perfectly a condensed group.

 

Quoting you to simply point out one thing, Force Wave/Overload (the frontal cone knockbacks for sage/sorc) CAN be turned into a heal for themselves and 5 friendly targets inside the wave range. I use it in pvp as another heal all the time for allies.

 

I guess they came to the conclusion that too many were playing sorcs and sages so they decided to destroy a lot of aspects of the class. Here are some examples of what's been going on since launch:

 

*Nerf to our good procs

*Nerf to 360 KB

*Nerf to stun range, which makes no sense when our effective range, as a ranged AC, is atleast 30 meters

*Nerf to WW by making it a channeled ability, even when speced in to.

*Nerf to armor rating, on a light armor class. Makes no sense at all.

 

So as a healer, madness or heavy madness hybrid you have a maximum of one stun, on atleast a 50 s CD, and a root. A lot of sorcs/sages have taken WW off their quickbars or replaced their keyboard location due to how rare it is that we get it off, you literally never get it off on an enemy that is focusing you unless you waste the stun first and ultimately fill their resolve bar. And this is all on a class with light armor, far from the best burst in the game and not the best sustained output.

 

Predictions for upcoming class re-balancing:

*1 minute CD on force speed

*1 minute CD on bubble + losing the ability to bubble team mates

*CD on force lightning, even when speced in to in the madness tree

 

I wouldnt be surprised by any nerf they possibly could come up with at this point.

 

Shared tree, in PvP I rarely don't break 400k damage done and regularly break 550k on the larger fighting areas while also pulling off 150-250k healing done. Sage/Sorc has the best sustained damage in the game.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Nempo

[NogueiraA]

Overload had the COOLEST animation in the game.

The "new" animation shows how bad Bioware design team is.

[oaceen]

on the contrary, i know exactly what i was doing, i was using an uncommon strategy that most people would pass off as foolish, but in essence worked for us better than anyone here may expect... it may seem crazy to send the group flying in multiple directions thus reducing AoE opportunities but when you have next to no AoE skills it works quite well, especially if it's the last AoE you fire off in your rotation... thus making the stragglers that didn't die from the opening salvo easy pickings that die in 1 or 2 hits... as i said it's a strategy that worked for us your mileage may vary...

i also don't just go off firing it off at random when the cooldown finishes, i use strategy, you gotta know when to use it and when not to...

sorry, i did not mean to come across as if i was saying you were stupid or whatever.

 

i'm not even saying your strategy is foolish.

 

i'm saying it was never intended to be used in that way, and my basis for this statement derives from the fact that aside from your specific scenario, quite the opposite happens (as i mentioned already).

 

so the change to force wave never took this into consideration, because, as you said, it was an unconventional tactic.

Edited August 12, 2013 by oaceen

[Kitru]

wait force wave isn't the aoe heal for sages, I think you got it confused with something else.

 

Psychic Suffusion talent in the tier 1 Seer tree. Force Wave has a 50/100% chance to heal you and your allies for XXX. For DPS, it's not a heal, but, for healers, it is.

[Savej]

Nerf? The effective area it covers is greater, it became more focused, more controllable and its range tripled. I consider it a buff, at worst it is a fair exchange.

 

Yep.

 

I'm really not sure what the pve gripe is either. Someone somewhere is having problems getting surrounded and killed by standard mobs? That person should probably not be playing video games.

[Nempo]

Psychic Suffusion talent in the tier 1 Seer tree. Force Wave has a 50/100% chance to heal you and your allies for XXX. For DPS, it's not a heal, but, for healers, it is.

 

Yeah, a crappy heal in PvE, but it is great for PvP when an ally is surrounded and needed a quick heal, KD the enemies away_heal them, immediately bubble then toss a better heal before helping to kill the others. It really is far better as a PvP emergency heal, seems such a pointless heal for PvE.

[QuiDonJorn]

What I propose is this...

 

A specific fix to Overload animation on Sorceror's, leaving the ability the way it is, but just fixing the awkward mistimed animation by removing the jump and flip, making the Sorceror go straight for the fist pounding the ground animation.

This would be more in line with Sages throwing thier hands out with the insta-cast.

 

Small fix and it would look better and keep the utility of the ability as-is.

Whaddyathink?

Edited August 12, 2013 by QuiDonJorn

[MidichIorian]

Shared tree, in PvP I rarely don't break 400k damage done and regularly break 550k on the larger fighting areas while also pulling off 150-250k healing done. Sage/Sorc has the best sustained damage in the game.

1. Sorcs don't have the highest dps on leaderboards

2. Sorcs arent topping dummy parses.

3. A lot of NiM raid groups have replaced sorcs with snipers because snipers parse higher.

4. You really shouldnt post dps/damage from games unless it's +2K/2M.

Edited August 12, 2013 by MidichIorian

[SkunkWerks]

it was nerfed way back in 1.4. When the changes were announced there was a HUGE outcry against it by PVE players, but as always Biowaer just steamrolled it through in favour of PVPers.

 

Never ceases to amaze me how MMO conspiracy theorists wrangle these notions in their head. Whoever BioWare favors is evidently a function of whatever demographic you don't fit into.

 

PvPers complain the devs favor PvE.

PvE folk complain BioWare are PvP-favoritists.

Roleplayers complain about pretty much anything that has nothing to directly do with RP.

 

Yet these theories all exist in the same continuum. Kinda like three guys in an asylum gathered together in one room who all happen to share the delusion that they're Jesus.

 

Amusing.

[Hockaday]

Yep.

 

I'm really not sure what the pve gripe is either. Someone somewhere is having problems getting surrounded and killed by standard mobs? That person should probably not be playing video games.

 

I'm assuming you're a dps.

 

The current knockback is meh. Range isn't that big of a boost...having it face one direction? Not really a plus. I'd rather have the 360, as I don't see it in its current state being more useful than the 360.

 

That being said, it's not the biggest deal in the world.