Vanguard // Powertechs Top 3 Answers!

[ScytheEleven]

Not sure what all of that is meant to prove, and it certainly doesnt refute any of what I just said.

 

On PTS (b/c I have tested it), I was getting 5.5k crits, plus 4 ticks of the DoT which could crit for ~1k. So in total, 9.5k potential damage. But that requires 5 crits, which has an infinitesimally small chance of actually occurring. So you would typically see damage in the 5-7k range.

 

TD can be made to do exactly the same average damage by making it an 8-9k crit. In fact, assuming a 30% crit chance, and assuming that TD does ~4250 non crit, ~8500 crit, you should see the average damage of TD over 100 uses be 5525, which is greater than your parse.

 

So explain to me how its reducing its effectiveness in PvE if all of its damage is returned to the initial application of damage?

 

Going back to the numbers I used (not trying to say you're stupid or anything, I just want this to be one coherent post):

 

Tool tip says:

 

Kinetic damage for TD: 2785 - 2899

Elemental DoT 12 seconds: 2281

 

Total damage range of TD being 5066 - 5180.

 

Average kinetic damage of TD: 2499

 

Average DoT tick (4 ticks per application) from TD: 742

 

Total damage of TD with the DoT: 5417

 

Alright. So to answer your question, first thing I did was take 2785 - 2899 and find the middle number...which was 2842. I then took 2499/2842 and cross multiplied it by x/100 to get the percentage. 2499 was 87.93% of 2842, which meant that the kinetic damage of TD was, on average, being reduced by 12.07%.

 

So if we take the total tool tip damage of TD (5066 - 5180), and find the middle of those two (5123), and then multiply that by 12.07% (618.35), then subtract that from 5123, we get:

 

4504.65 damage.

 

That is what, in this parse, I would've gotten on average per TD application without the DoT.

 

Another way to look at it:

 

TD kinetic damage plus DoT damage = 108,395 total damage.

 

Remove the DoT and multiply TD usage (20 times) by 4504.65 and you get: 90,093 total damage

 

Am I a math genius? No. Could my math be wrong? Absolutely. But the way I'm looking at it right now, TD with the DoT is MUCH MUCH better than TD with no DoT. Removal of the DoT and putting it ALL into kinetic damage would be a big nerf for PVE.

 

Sure, seeing that 8k - 9k crit from an all kinetic damage TD would be cool and all, but overall prolonged fights, TD w/ a DoT beats out an all kinetic TD for PVE.

 

This why I'm suggesting boosting the armor penetration of TD by a percentage. PVP'ers get more burst, and PVE players get another reason to finally use TD.

[cashogy_reborn]

Going back to the numbers I used (not trying to say you're stupid or anything, I just want this to be one coherent post):

 

Tool tip says:

 

Kinetic damage for TD: 2785 - 2899

Elemental DoT 12 seconds: 2281

 

Total damage range of TD being 5066 - 5180.

 

Average kinetic damage of TD: 2499

 

Average DoT tick (4 ticks per application) from TD: 742

 

Total damage of TD with the DoT: 5417

 

Alright. So to answer your question, first thing I did was take 2785 - 2899 and find the middle number...which was 2842. I then took 2499/2842 and cross multiplied it by x/100 to get the percentage. 2499 was 87.93% of 2842, which meant that the kinetic damage of TD was, on average, being reduced by 12.07%.

 

So if we take the total tool tip damage of TD (5066 - 5180), and find the middle of those two (5123), and then multiply that by 12.07% (618.35), then subtract that from 5123, we get:

 

4504.65 damage.

 

That is what, in this parse, I would've gotten on average per TD application without the DoT.

 

Another way to look at it:

 

TD kinetic damage plus DoT damage = 108,395 total damage.

 

Remove the DoT and multiply TD usage (20 times) by 4504.65 and you get: 90,093 total damage

 

Am I a math genius? No. Could my math be wrong? Absolutely. But the way I'm looking at it right now, TD with the DoT is MUCH MUCH better than TD with no DoT. Removal of the DoT and putting it ALL into kinetic damage would be a big nerf for PVE.

 

Sure, seeing that 8k - 9k crit from an all kinetic damage TD would be cool and all, but overall prolonged fights, TD w/ a DoT beats out an all kinetic TD for PVE.

 

This why I'm suggesting boosting the armor penetration of TD by a percentage. PVP'ers get more burst, and PVE players get another reason to finally use TD.

 

Re-read my post.

 

Specifically, this part:

TD can be made to do exactly the same average damage by making it an 8-9k crit. In fact, assuming a 30% crit chance, and assuming that TD does ~4250 non crit, ~8500 crit, you should see the average damage of TD over 100 uses be 5525, which is greater than your parse.

 

Over prolonged fights, what I suggest does more damage (albeit slightly)

[JollyRen]

ok, so i'm not quite as mad as a lot of you about the changes I have read about. I'm not entirely there with pyro getting all the buffs. AP is quite utility heavy, but not very good on damage. High Energy is pointless, why get an auto-crit on an ability most classes either cleanse away (need a bleed to use railshot) or dodge (Ops evade, Sage bubble, exfiltrate, reflect, etc. It get's a useful hit sometimes... Needs to proc more again to increase damage)? Why get an extra 3% damage increase when you can get a bleed from 30 meters and get damage from railshot? High Energy is the dumbest cell ever, and will never be used on current game mechanics, and forcing me to use it more and more to activate abilities in AP instead of either Ion or CGC will not make me happy.

 

That all being said, changes overall, in conjunction with changes already mentioned, which are: Decrease cost of Flame thrower (and power) across the board, except in the case of AP where it costs less per PT stack, and increases damage on crit damage bonus; Pyro getting a slow for flamesweep (overdue); retractable blade doing LESS damage for SAME heat (should be less heat, same damage, or more up front - like 50%); incendiary missile doing less damage for 30% less heat; TD doing same damage, more up front. Now Kolto doing 25% DR, healing past 35%.

 

Not bad, it's decent...

 

Changes that need to be made to bolster those actions:

- Give tier 6 shieldtech skill to AP/Tactics, the one which gives a free 50% channel time Flame thrower every 24/18 seconds. We're going to blow it anyway without the 70% slow.

- Do something more with HO/HoL for Tactics than 4s, I get it for a skill point gap-fill to get to the next tier, not because it is particularly useful.

- 2% DR in first tier is pointless. 1%/2% of 6000 is only 60/120 damage. maybe 3%/6% and we can talk.

- Retractable Blade/Gut needs to do same damage for less, if anything. And don't take away the 3% damage increase bonus.

- Flame Thrower is moving in the right direction, but don't nerf speed debuff.

- High Energy Cell needs to have a reason to be around. the damage increase is not good enough.

- Immolate needs to do more damage for same 8 heat cost. 11 makes it pointless. that just means that rocket punch isn't free, it costs us 13 less heat (isn't Rocketpunch 16? if it's 8 then 5 less heat than normal)

- We need an execute. I literally have 4 buttons in every tree to push. Flameburst, railshot, retractable blade, immolate or flameburst, railshot, incidiary (not likely), and td (also not likely). The problem with the tree is that all the nice goodies are tier 6 and 7, and you are basically forced to get TD or a bunch of less worthwhile points in other trees.

 

- Why do you discourage Hybrids? Don't you want variety instead of cookie cutter meta gaming? There are about 7 different specs which do roughly the same damage, tanking, or utility in different balances. I'm testing a hybrid right now for the burst of pyro, and dots, but getting the AoE of AP tree (go up to PT on tier 5, and up to tier 5 in Pyro, getting I think firebug and something else, after the proc tier of railshot from FB/RP). It's great and throws people off guard about what spec I am running.

 

I do a shieldtech/AP hybrid for huttball, get jetcharge, go up to HoL/HO and run in 2set medic, 2set CT PvP.

 

I do an AP Ion Cell where I get steely resolve, hyperfuel, and rail loaders, pyro RP 8% Damage Increase, and rest in AP ignoring all the HE cell skills.

 

Pyro, obviously, straight up.

 

Shieldtech, straight up.

 

AP, steely resolve, and rest in pyro, run CGC.

 

None of which use HE. I don't want to be forced to use High Energy, I just want it to be useful so I have more options. I am a very situational player, which means I like to use the right tool for the right job. Sometimes it's straight survivability. Sometimes our team needs DPS straight up, sometimes it needs utility (AP), sometimes it needs mobility (AP Shieldtech hybrid with jetcharge), sometimes it needs dps with survivability (AP Ion Cell), sometimes it needs burst and AoE (AP/pyro 50/50).

 

It's a versatile class, and people need to learn to play it, but equal skill PT should equal other classes of equal skill. I have to be twice as good as any smash monkey to get 200k less in a short match, let alone a long voidstar or civil, or novare. Likely i'm getting protection because i'm needing to survive long enough to keep them from capping, so I'm in AP Ion Cell. I can also nodeguard with it and be uncappable by stealth, except by killing, which I've usually stalled long enough for someone to come over, unless there's 3, and in that case I just have to pop every cooldown and LoS and hope to god I can keep them uncapped until help arrives. But I shouldn't be a PT wunderkind to be able to play the class.

 

AP is the key to making PT a great class, but your mishandling of Pyro makes it barely even "good". No one knows how to even gear shieldtech, it seems. IMO it should be shield and absorb with about 150 points in defense, and a defense relic and absorb relic, so mostly based in shield/power augs and enhancements to get the most bang for your buck, defense doesn't help PT as much as other classes with dodge and resist effects. We just push through the damage and don't mitigate as much at evasion, just absorbing damage... .... like a tank.

 

/ramble

 

basically, you're on the right track, but your perception, mr. and mrs. Dev, is off, not your community. We need buffs, not balances. And that's just to make us equal in DPS or Tanking (closer in tanking than people realize, they just don't play it right most of the time.) . Shoulder cannon in AP is amazing. It's 2.5k hits, and 7 of them. use it on cooldown. that's a lot of damage. it's just not burst. Even off GCD it takes 7 seconds to do 17.5k damage on a full 7 rockets, which goes on a long CD, and you have to wait a long time for those rockets to load, then they disappear after what, 2.5 minutes? 5? I can't even remember now. But that takes away from you being an uncappable node-gaurder.

 

All of PT ability now is in distraction and utility, and it doesn't even have as much of that as it should.

 

and to be literal, i use more than 4 hotkeys... but you can play with just those. My hotbars are almost totally full, but with medpacks, adrenals, support abilities like scanning and DoA, interrupt (use them more, people!), HO, etc. But you only have 5 damage dealing abilities worth the heat (and pyro only has 3, RP, FB, RS)

 

the class needs an overhaul.

Edited August 29, 2013 by JollyRen

[JollyRen]

One more change - Move energy rebounder to the spec that needs it: Shieldtech, and move the flamethrower skill to AP, even unchanged, and AP gets back into the DPS game.

[ScytheEleven]

Re-read my post.

 

Specifically, this part:

 

Over prolonged fights, what I suggest does more damage (albeit slightly)

 

Here is the problem with your math, however:

 

You're comparing a 100% surge bonus (70% baseline, plus 30% skill tree bonus) to my 96% (66% baseline, 30% skill tree). In my parse, my PT DPS is undergeared, and only has 66% surge.

 

So if we take 4250, a 96% surge percentage tops you at a max crit of 8160. Following your math, (4250 x 70) + (8160 x 30) / 100 = 5423. Technically, that does beat out the total damage of TD w/ the DoT, which was at 5417...but, you are assuming a 30% crit on TD. So that 30% crit chance must apply to the DoT as well. Unfortunately, in my parse, TD kinetic damage did strike an even 30%, but the DoT fell short at 28.75% crit chance.

 

This next bit of math is out of my reach; I'm not quite sure how to go about it (like I said, not a math genius), but I feel pretty confident in saying that if we were to bump up the DoT crit chance from 28.75% to 30% in this parse, the total damage would beat out 5423.

 

I also think you might be off in suggesting the average hit be 4250 and the average crit hit being 8500 (or in my parse case, 8160). If you take a look at my parse, there is variance. The average hit of all TD explosions was 2449. The biggest max crit was 3964. If we multiply 2449 x .96 (so 96% surge bonus I had), you would get 2351, so if we follow how you're setting this up, 2449 + 2351 = 4800. 4800 would be my average crit that I should be getting every time, but I come nowhere close to this.

 

So here is what I did in an attempt to figure this out.

 

I took my six (6) TD kinetic crits (3843, 3619, 3598, 3951, 3598, and 3964), added them up to get 22573, and divided by six. That got me my average crit hit of 3762.17. Since you are using 4250 as your average hit, and in my gear the crit would top at 8160, I cross multiplied 3762.17/4800 by x/100 to find out that 3762.17 is 78.38%, which meant that my average crit was hitting for 21.62% LESS than my average TD hit (2449) multiplied by surge multiplier of 96% (which was 4800).

 

So I then took 8160 (66% surge multiplier max crit hit of 4250) and multiplied it by .2162 and got 1764.192. Subtracted that from 8160 to get 6395.88.

 

6395.88 x 30 = 191876.4

4250 x 70 = 297500

 

Add up, divide by 100 = 4893.764 damage

 

Again, my math could be the pits and I could be leaving key factors out, but everything is still pointing towards TD w/ the DoT being much better for PVE than TD w/ no DoT.

Edited August 29, 2013 by ScytheEleven

[CrazyOldMystic]

Devs I do not know why I care to write this, as I do not think you will do anything about it, but your view is incorrect. Take a vanguard into a wz and try to use full auto or hammer shot. You find that 30 meter range auto attack is garbage, and hammer shot gets absorbed allot. Not to mention the full auto cool down can not be reset and reduced like a commandos can be. The truth of the matter is sith and jedi classes are money, they will always be money in the star wars universe. So why bother fixing a spec that does not feel like a trooper, or for that matter why bother even try digging into the details of the spec. I would Like to be kinder but talking about a 30 meter range attack, like it hits hard hitting every time is a load of bs. I have a commando with valor 60+, after the changes to illum, when valor could not be farmed easily. I have a vanguard with valor 50+, I have seen much in the wzs, you assume way too much. The vanguard needs a major overhaul. I am not asking for op damage like a sniper. but at least give us 20 to 25 meters range on our main attacks, and for the love of mercy more grenades and blaster fire.

[SnipeAlott]

Where are my PvE buffs?

[Pilgrim_Grey]

What everyone seems to forget is that Pulse Cannon/Flamethrower's critical hit damage is now boosted by 30%

 

Mix that in with the fact that for every stack, Pulse Cannon/Flamethrower costs 2 less heat (so now 18 at three stacks). You also now vent 2 heat every 1.5 seconds. In short, if you thought heat management was easy before, it is just silly now.

 

Overall, AP/Tactics got a solid buff. It is now better than Hybrid in PVE.

 

In summary:

 

+ Pulse Generator/Flamethrower 30% critical damage boost. :D

+ Fire Pulse/Immolate damage increase

+ At three stacks, Pulse Generator/Flamethrower now only costs 18 heat

+ You now vent 2 heat every 1.5 seconds

 

- Retractable Blade/Gut's bleeding reduced

 

Fair enough, I guess. My main concern, then, is that the Tactics spec is so top heavy with the changes. The buffs to Ion Pulse are all at the top of the tree and Fire Pulse is the 36 point skill, so it'll take a long time for a Tactics to get to those nice things, whereas I can do pretty well in the 20s with Gut (before I even have many skills that improve Gut).

 

I guess them's the breaks with them wanting to take out hybrid viability, but I wish they weren't doing it quite so much. As others have said, I wish they'd just allow for the 36 tier approach to be competitive with hybrids. Punishing a hybrid approach might make balance a tiny bit easier (and let's face it, it's only a little easier), but it does remove a lot of variety to a game that encourages alts like this one does.

 

Oh, and FYI for some of the recent posters that clearly haven't read changes since the start of this week, go there first. Some thoughts are making me think it's the past weekend again.

[Huez]

Well PTS is up can someone give it a stir and test the DPS now to see how it is? Edited August 29, 2013 by Huez
mistake

[Chickensevil]

Fair enough, I guess. My main concern, then, is that the Tactics spec is so top heavy with the changes. The buffs to Ion Pulse are all at the top of the tree and Fire Pulse is the 36 point skill, so it'll take a long time for a Tactics to get to those nice things, whereas I can do pretty well in the 20s with Gut (before I even have many skills that improve Gut).

 

I guess them's the breaks with them wanting to take out hybrid viability, but I wish they weren't doing it quite so much. As others have said, I wish they'd just allow for the 36 tier approach to be competitive with hybrids. Punishing a hybrid approach might make balance a tiny bit easier (and let's face it, it's only a little easier), but it does remove a lot of variety to a game that encourages alts like this one does.

 

Oh, and FYI for some of the recent posters that clearly haven't read changes since the start of this week, go there first. Some thoughts are making me think it's the past weekend again.

 

Sorry, but buffing the top of the tree has been the single biggest request. Should they have left Gut/RB (and to some extent IM (and whatever it is called for trooper)) alone? Sure I won't really argue there. I do like that IM costs less and wish they would leave the damage alone, because I really don't think it would impact DPS by too much. My guess is that they nerfed both of these, more because they were re-assessing the heat on them, instead of considering what it would do to hybrids. When they target a break on hybrids there is no mistaking it for something else... These changes don't give that impression.

 

Finally, BH and Trooper in general (whether mec/mando or pt/vg) is really OP at the early levels as it is. One of the easiest classes to level and most fun (maybe it is why I am so partial to my PT, and even enjoying my Merc though not quite max level). A small nerf to these lower tiers does not really impact your lowbie play much, because they were not what made the class so OP. It was that you get all of your AOE within the first 15 or so levels... and we all know how strong FT/PC and DFA are to the class, hence why they are used on some spec's single target rotations.

 

They just need to buff the top of the Pyro/Assault tree a BUNCH more.

[OlosBC]

Sorry, but buffing the top of the tree has been the single biggest request. Should they have left Gut/RB (and to some extent IM (and whatever it is called for trooper)) alone? Sure I won't really argue there. I do like that IM costs less and wish they would leave the damage alone, because I really don't think it would impact DPS by too much. My guess is that they nerfed both of these, more because they were re-assessing the heat on them, instead of considering what it would do to hybrids. When they target a break on hybrids there is no mistaking it for something else... These changes don't give that impression.

 

Finally, BH and Trooper in general (whether mec/mando or pt/vg) is really OP at the early levels as it is. One of the easiest classes to level and most fun (maybe it is why I am so partial to my PT, and even enjoying my Merc though not quite max level). A small nerf to these lower tiers does not really impact your lowbie play much, because they were not what made the class so OP. It was that you get all of your AOE within the first 15 or so levels... and we all know how strong FT/PC and DFA are to the class, hence why they are used on some spec's single target rotations.

 

They just need to buff the top of the Pyro/Assault tree a BUNCH more.

 

The big problem that causes the hybrid is this:

 

The combustible cylinder is very strong(even still after 2.0) and so is the first 16-22 points in the pyro/assault tree, while the top of the pyro tree is atrocious from a damage perspective.

 

The High energy cell is very weak, even with it getting the movement speed, extra heat, and crit rail shot. If you want to use HEGC, the top of the tree is actually fairly good, but there's no real incentive to use it.

 

So, people pick IP the best parts of pyro (the cell/cylinder and PPA) and then go pick up some useful stuff in AP cause the top of pyro blows. Doing this, we get the 2/22/22 (which I find to be a very fun spec to play) hybrid, which gets the best parts of both specs, and avoiding the ****** parts of both (high energy cell and top tier pyro).

[Chickensevil]

The big problem that causes the hybrid is this:

 

The combustible cylinder is very strong(even still after 2.0) and so is the first 16-22 points in the pyro/assault tree, while the top of the pyro tree is atrocious from a damage perspective.

 

The High energy cell is very weak, even with it getting the movement speed, extra heat, and crit rail shot. If you want to use HEGC, the top of the tree is actually fairly good, but there's no real incentive to use it.

 

So, people pick IP the best parts of pyro (the cell/cylinder and PPA) and then go pick up some useful stuff in AP cause the top of pyro blows. Doing this, we get the 2/22/22 (which I find to be a very fun spec to play) hybrid, which gets the best parts of both specs, and avoiding the ****** parts of both (high energy cell and top tier pyro).

 

Yes, you said pretty much exactly what I said, but in another way... The top of the trees suck... the bottoms are way better. So you go with all the bottom talents and forgo the top. It's an age old problem with the entire talent tree design and I wish they would find a way to do away with the whole "perceived choice" in the trees since it just royally screws with balance.

 

Each class should have 3 basic play styles, You push a button and it switches you to that style. End of discussion, problem solved. Then you don't have to worry about balancing the talent trees... if CGC hits too hard, lower the damage... if TD needs to be redesigned make it better. Would also clearly show you which classes are lackluster and which spec's need help. This whole archaic talent tree design just continues to cause massive amounts of issues.

 

The trees just cause confusion to new players, creates wild and crazy builds that are impossible to balance content around, and there ends up never really being a real choice. Theorycrafters will always tear apart the trees and figure out the best possible builds... either you play one of those or you don't play with the serious crowd. You can make fun and interresting combat without giving people "options" on the trees.

 

Think about it this way, there are 8 classes in the game each with 3 trees, That is 24 "unique" play styles. If they would strip it down to a set 24 spec's how much easier would it be to balance the game? I am also a firm believer in separation of PVP and PVE... you can never hope to come to a balance when one play style affects another.

 

So my pie in the sky wish for Star Wars, work right now, toward 3.0 class redesign. Strip away the talent trees, make it a fixed 24 "Jobs/Classes/Specs/whatever" and then separate the balance between PVP and PVE. That certainly doesn't mean simplify the classes or rotations. You still can have fun and interesting gameplay without needing the excess.

[Aelaias]

Well PTS is up can someone give it a stir and test the DPS now to see how it is?

 

Pyro changes not in as of yet.

[ellenbec]

The class does not have much burst, as the only thing that can potentially break 6K is RS, and overall critic rating has been reduced, which consequently dropped the value the surge bonuses the assault/pyro trees have. .

 

 

IIRC in the Sorc answers, the dev response though was that they are not happy with Crit % and Crit Rating and would be looking at adjusting it to bring it back in line with other stats. If they do that though that will DEFINITELY help out the surge bonuses in all talent trees.

[ellenbec]

One more change - Move energy rebounder to the spec that needs it: Shieldtech, and move the flamethrower skill to AP, even unchanged, and AP gets back into the DPS game.

 

 

And JollyRen, if you bring up taking away ST's Flame Engine you will be lynched and beaten with a sledgehammer by some very angry tanks.

 

One of the biggest boosts to ST that came about with 2.0 was the addition to Flame Engine. The heat management, TPS, and DPS increase for a TANK CLASS with this one talent is far too vital to us than moving it over to AP. There are ways to buff AP without taking away Flame Engine.

[cashogy_reborn]

Here is the problem with your math, however:

 

You're comparing a 100% surge bonus (70% baseline, plus 30% skill tree bonus) to my 96% (66% baseline, 30% skill tree). In my parse, my PT DPS is undergeared, and only has 66% surge.

 

So if we take 4250, a 96% surge percentage tops you at a max crit of 8160. Following your math, (4250 x 70) + (8160 x 30) / 100 = 5423. Technically, that does beat out the total damage of TD w/ the DoT, which was at 5417...but, you are assuming a 30% crit on TD. So that 30% crit chance must apply to the DoT as well. Unfortunately, in my parse, TD kinetic damage did strike an even 30%, but the DoT fell short at 28.75% crit chance.

 

This next bit of math is out of my reach; I'm not quite sure how to go about it (like I said, not a math genius), but I feel pretty confident in saying that if we were to bump up the DoT crit chance from 28.75% to 30% in this parse, the total damage would beat out 5423.

 

I also think you might be off in suggesting the average hit be 4250 and the average crit hit being 8500 (or in my parse case, 8160). If you take a look at my parse, there is variance. The average hit of all TD explosions was 2449. The biggest max crit was 3964. If we multiply 2449 x .96 (so 96% surge bonus I had), you would get 2351, so if we follow how you're setting this up, 2449 + 2351 = 4800. 4800 would be my average crit that I should be getting every time, but I come nowhere close to this.

 

So here is what I did in an attempt to figure this out.

 

I took my six (6) TD kinetic crits (3843, 3619, 3598, 3951, 3598, and 3964), added them up to get 22573, and divided by six. That got me my average crit hit of 3762.17. Since you are using 4250 as your average hit, and in my gear the crit would top at 8160, I cross multiplied 3762.17/4800 by x/100 to find out that 3762.17 is 78.38%, which meant that my average crit was hitting for 21.62% LESS than my average TD hit (2449) multiplied by surge multiplier of 96% (which was 4800).

 

So I then took 8160 (66% surge multiplier max crit hit of 4250) and multiplied it by .2162 and got 1764.192. Subtracted that from 8160 to get 6395.88.

 

6395.88 x 30 = 191876.4

4250 x 70 = 297500

 

Add up, divide by 100 = 4893.764 damage

 

Again, my math could be the pits and I could be leaving key factors out, but everything is still pointing towards TD w/ the DoT being much better for PVE than TD w/ no DoT.

 

The average damage displayed in your parse *includes* those crits. Look at your parse again. All of your non-crit TDs are in the 1800-2000 range. Which lines up exactly w/ your crits being in the 3.6-3.9k range.

 

All of the math you are doing is based off of an incorrect assumption: that your average non-crit TD damage was 2449.

[Ottoattack]

Sorry, but buffing the top of the tree has been the single biggest request. Should they have left Gut/RB (and to some extent IM (and whatever it is called for trooper)) alone? Sure I won't really argue there. I do like that IM costs less and wish they would leave the damage alone, because I really don't think it would impact DPS by too much. My guess is that they nerfed both of these, more because they were re-assessing the heat on them, instead of considering what it would do to hybrids. When they target a break on hybrids there is no mistaking it for something else... These changes don't give that impression.

 

Finally, BH and Trooper in general (whether mec/mando or pt/vg) is really OP at the early levels as it is. One of the easiest classes to level and most fun (maybe it is why I am so partial to my PT, and even enjoying my Merc though not quite max level). A small nerf to these lower tiers does not really impact your lowbie play much, because they were not what made the class so OP. It was that you get all of your AOE within the first 15 or so levels... and we all know how strong FT/PC and DFA are to the class, hence why they are used on some spec's single target rotations.

 

They just need to buff the top of the Pyro/Assault tree a BUNCH more.

 

Unfortunately all of the pyro buffs were defensive in nature. While needed for PvP; does not help PvE at all. Even for PvP pyro is still not viable. The only thing the class can do now is snare, nothing else. Apparently parsing 15% less than top parsers is balanced.

 

I think this is a lost cause at this point. Devs do not test and do not listen. Its just a waste of time.

[JollyRen]

And JollyRen, if you bring up taking away ST's Flame Engine you will be lynched and beaten with a sledgehammer by some very angry tanks.

 

One of the biggest boosts to ST that came about with 2.0 was the addition to Flame Engine. The heat management, TPS, and DPS increase for a TANK CLASS with this one talent is far too vital to us than moving it over to AP. There are ways to buff AP without taking away Flame Engine.

 

You wouldn't rather have energy rebounder and get your reactive again quicker with higher absorb chance and amount? Because I'd rather put something with damage in damage tree, than in tank tree.

[JollyRen]

And JollyRen, if you bring up taking away ST's Flame Engine you will be lynched and beaten with a sledgehammer by some very angry tanks.

 

One of the biggest boosts to ST that came about with 2.0 was the addition to Flame Engine. The heat management, TPS, and DPS increase for a TANK CLASS with this one talent is far too vital to us than moving it over to AP. There are ways to buff AP without taking away Flame Engine.

 

second point, now that I thought of it, I do PvP primarily. I have no idea what that will do for PvE. However, I do PvE sometimes, and tank, or respec to dps if it's a solo tank match, like a few are in S&V SM. Hell, i've even DPS'd in tank tree cause I was too lazy to respec and was soloing snipers for thresher in partisan gear with ST. But I didn't find that skill to be very useful, really, for ST.

[Ottoattack]

Yes, you said pretty much exactly what I said, but in another way... The top of the trees suck... the bottoms are way better. So you go with all the bottom talents and forgo the top. It's an age old problem with the entire talent tree design and I wish they would find a way to do away with the whole "perceived choice" in the trees since it just royally screws with balance.

 

Each class should have 3 basic play styles, You push a button and it switches you to that style. End of discussion, problem solved. Then you don't have to worry about balancing the talent trees... if CGC hits too hard, lower the damage... if TD needs to be redesigned make it better. Would also clearly show you which classes are lackluster and which spec's need help. This whole archaic talent tree design just continues to cause massive amounts of issues.

 

The trees just cause confusion to new players, creates wild and crazy builds that are impossible to balance content around, and there ends up never really being a real choice. Theorycrafters will always tear apart the trees and figure out the best possible builds... either you play one of those or you don't play with the serious crowd. You can make fun and interresting combat without giving people "options" on the trees.

 

Think about it this way, there are 8 classes in the game each with 3 trees, That is 24 "unique" play styles. If they would strip it down to a set 24 spec's how much easier would it be to balance the game? I am also a firm believer in separation of PVP and PVE... you can never hope to come to a balance when one play style affects another.

 

So my pie in the sky wish for Star Wars, work right now, toward 3.0 class redesign. Strip away the talent trees, make it a fixed 24 "Jobs/Classes/Specs/whatever" and then separate the balance between PVP and PVE. That certainly doesn't mean simplify the classes or rotations. You still can have fun and interesting gameplay without needing the excess.

 

PT trees have multiple design flaws. First the tank tree has too many damage support skills, 3 points to get 6% fire, 2 points for 6% RS and 3 points for 9% aim. PT's tank tree is the only tree that has 8 required skilled points to be used by dps trees, of which some can not be forgone like the aim and RS bonus. Also PT tank tree is the only tank tree that has in the second tier a skill that is essential for other dps trees; 3 points 6% fire damage bonus.

 

To make matters worse, RS has way too many scattered around damage enhancers. 2 points in tank tree and 3 points in AP tree, that's 5 points for just one skill.

 

Also, tank tree has to go to AP tree to pick up damage reduction and pyro tree to pick up 3% endurance. Tank tree and AP tree can get all the need in the other tree with exception of the endurance. Pyro on the other hand has to always make a selection. There are 8 points you want in the tank tree and 8 points in the AP, and that's without picking the armor bonuses in each tree which is an additional 4 points. As a result, even though TD does good damage, getting it is always a net loss for full pyro, especially that nothing in the top of the tree, aside from power bracers, does anything to improve damage. This problem existed since pre-expansion.

 

Simple rearranging of skills, like sending 3% endurance to the tank tree from pyro in exchange for 6% fire damage and removing the 6% RS bonus damage, just add it to the default RS damage, would free several points for pyro to invest in full tree and improve overall damage, something the tree desperately needs. Pyro should be able to invest 7 points in AP tree, something that is impossible right now. Also, this will improve points selection for AP and the tank tree, AP can easily pick up some armor and tank some damage from other trees.

 

Also, pyro suffers from too many useless stuff. Bonus fire damage from shield. Bad idea. Does not work unless you are getting atked. Great in PvP only if you are fighting solo, other than that useless. 15% bonus dot damage = who would get this and why? Degsuss, another root breaker, for a class that has root breaker on 30 sec CD. Kolto over load useless skill reduction. The last 2 have been significantly buffed to act as defensive CDs, making them good points for PvP, but do not contribute to damage what so ever. They are essentially useless for PvE and PvP damage needs a desperate improvement.

 

When I look at pyro tree it is failure in design. Even pre expansion it was not well designed, but was masked by the tremendous burst and strong sustained damage, RS and CGC offered. With RS armor penetration cut and CGC cut in half and TD face damage is pathetic, the class lost on both sustained and burst damage, and the inherent design flaws became so apparent. Anyway, BW is too lazy to do anything, and the changes came in the PTS so far does not make the class competitive. In fact, I feel they are w.e player base QQed so much lets buff something and they might **** off, without any real though put in the changes.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Ottoattack

[ScytheEleven]

second point, now that I thought of it, I do PvP primarily. I have no idea what that will do for PvE. However, I do PvE sometimes, and tank, or respec to dps if it's a solo tank match, like a few are in S&V SM. Hell, i've even DPS'd in tank tree cause I was too lazy to respec and was soloing snipers for thresher in partisan gear with ST. But I didn't find that skill to be very useful, really, for ST.

 

Removing Flame Engine from the Shield Tech is a terrible idea. I have a PT tank, and if you don't find Flame Engine to be amazing in PVE, you're doing it wrong.

 

The average damage displayed in your parse *includes* those crits. Look at your parse again. All of your non-crit TDs are in the 1800-2000 range. Which lines up exactly w/ your crits being in the 3.6-3.9k range.

 

All of the math you are doing is based off of an incorrect assumption: that your average non-crit TD damage was 2449.

 

No, 2449 was my average hit for TD (14 non-crits, 6 crits) throughout the entire parse...which is why I did this earlier:

 

first thing I did was take 2785 - 2899 and find the middle number...which was 2842. I then took 2499/2842 and cross multiplied it by x/100 to get the percentage. 2499 was 87.93% of 2842, which meant that the kinetic damage of TD was, on average, being reduced by 12.07%.

 

So if we take the total tool tip damage of TD (5066 - 5180), and find the middle of those two (5123), and then multiply that by 12.07% (618.35), then subtract that from 5123, we get:

 

4504.65 damage.

 

2449 was my average TD hit (14 regular hits, 6 crit hits), and on average, TD received a 12.07% reduction when 2449 was factored against the suggested tool-tip kinetic damage output. So taking the entire damage of TD (5066 - 5180), I took the middle number 5123 and multiplied it by the average damage reduction of 12.07%, which was 618.35. So my average TD hit (non-crit and crit) in an all kinetic TD would've been 4504.65

 

I will say that I saw a post by you suggesting that the DoT from TD only cover a few seconds (two seconds, 4 ticks?). That is a really good idea that helps out PVP and keeps PVE happy. Definitely something I would support.

Edited August 30, 2013 by ScytheEleven

[cashogy_reborn]

No, 2449 was my average hit for TD (14 non-crits, 6 crits) throughout the entire parse...which is why I did this earlier:

 

 

The average hit of all TD explosions was 2449. The biggest max crit was 3964. If we multiply 2449 x .96 (so 96% surge bonus I had), you would get 2351, so if we follow how you're setting this up, 2449 + 2351 = 4800. 4800 would be my average crit that I should be getting every time, but I come nowhere close to this.

 

You used that 2449 figure as your non-crit average. Which made basically all of the math you did in that post wrong.

 

And again, I do not really see the point of all of these calculations you are doing. They do not prove nor disprove anything

Edited August 30, 2013 by cashogy_reborn

[ScytheEleven]

You used that 2449 figure as your non-crit average. Which made basically all of the math you did in that post wrong.

 

And again, I do not really see the point of all of these calculations you are doing. They do not prove nor disprove anything

 

You used that 2449 figure as your non-crit average. Which made basically all of the math you did in that post wrong.

 

And again, I do not really see the point of all of these calculations you are doing. They do not prove nor disprove anything

 

Ah I see what you're looking at now.

 

I was trying to refer back to your post about 4250 non-crit and 8500 crit. I was assuming you were using 4250 as your average TD damage (which would include non-crit and crit), and 8500 as your average crit. What I was trying to show was that if 4250 was your average hit (crit and non-crit included), then 8500 would not be your average critical hit.

 

Basically, I thought you were saying that out of 100 TD applications, the average hit would be 4250, so the average crit must be 8500.

 

That's why I did all of this (that you highlighted):

 

The average hit of all TD explosions was 2449. The biggest max crit was 3964. If we multiply 2449 x .96 (so 96% surge bonus I had), you would get 2351, so if we follow how you're setting this up, 2449 + 2351 = 4800. 4800 would be my average crit that I should be getting every time, but I come nowhere close to this.

 

So no, I used 2449 as my average (crit and non-crit) for my math, I just used it in this one instance as my non-crit average because I was trying to disprove the same thing you thought I was doing (because I thought you were doing it)

Edited August 30, 2013 by ScytheEleven

[Chickensevil]

Unfortunately all of the pyro buffs were defensive in nature. While needed for PvP; does not help PvE at all. Even for PvP pyro is still not viable. The only thing the class can do now is snare, nothing else. Apparently parsing 15% less than top parsers is balanced.

 

I think this is a lost cause at this point. Devs do not test and do not listen. Its just a waste of time.

 

Wasn't trying to suggest that they were helpful. Just trying to reason their goal with the changes and make sense of it. If you can understand their reasoning behind the changes (something they never seem to do a decent job of explaining... seriously... BW Devs reading this... this is your biggest single point of failure... if we don't know WHY you do something to a class, we can have no hope of explaining to you why you might be wrong on a decision, or presenting a proper counter argument. Simple change, when you make a major class balance decision that isn't a "bug fix" you should probably explain your reasoning and goal. /rant) then you can maybe have a starting point for putting them back on the right path. Although it does seem like a futile attempt to get them to see good reason.

 

PT trees have multiple design flaws.

 

...[snip]...

 

When I look at pyro tree it is failure in design. Even pre expansion it was not well designed, but was masked by the tremendous burst and strong sustained damage, RS and CGC offered. With RS armor penetration cut and CGC cut in half and TD face damage is pathetic, the class lost on both sustained and burst damage, and the inherent design flaws became so apparent. Anyway, BW is too lazy to do anything, and the changes came in the PTS so far does not make the class competitive. In fact, I feel they are w.e player base QQed so much lets buff something and they might **** off, without any real though put in the changes.

 

+1 on this whole post (I snipped it down for brevity). I think this sums up the overall problem with Pyro and to a lesser extent AP and ST. Which is why buffing the top of the tree or moving talents around/getting rid of talents would be a good step in the right direction. You should never have to take a talent that you feel is pointless. In order to get to TD how many are you taking? Lets just look at things that directly boost your damage vs everything else...

 

Tier 1: Integrated Cardio Package - 3 points

Tier 2: Sweltering Heat - 2 points / Gyroscopic Alignment Jets - 2 points

Tier 3: Pyro Shield - 2 points / Infared Sensors - 2 points

Tier 4: Flame Suit - 2 Points

Tier 6: Degauss - 2 Points

Tier 7: Automated Defenses - 2 Points

 

Again, that is strictly speaking things which would do nothing for you to boost your damage in a PVE encounter totaling 17 points. If you took everything in the tree it would be 43 points. Strangely though, you look at AP and you have 23 talents with 42 point allocation. Pyro is 21 talents with 43 point allocation... Explain that ****? You have LESS talents in the tree that require more points and so many of them are lackluster or useless to increasing your damage. Finally looking at the total number of non-damage increasing talents in the AP tree, and you have also 7 (I am counting Pneumatic Boots as a damage increase since you will never (or rarely ever) have a fight with 0 movement, so an increase in movement speed is your single greatest increase in damage) talents that are buffs to other aspects of the build. Then you look at how many points are put onto those 7 talents and it is only 12 points. So even if you feel compelled to take some of these talents you are only at most spending 12 points, giving you 5 points to stick in something that would increase your damage.

 

All of this helps to make AP feel like a more complete tree. You can spec up the tree multiple ways, but the core 36 point spec in the tree is going to be pretty much everything you would ever need/want in a PVE type encounter.

 

Seriously, take the Pyro tree COMPLETELY back to the drawing board. Figure out what you want to do with the spec, how you feel it should play out, then design it around that goal following the same or similar pattern you took on AP. It feel like 2 different people designed these two trees... Or someone put way more love and care in designing AP. AP has it's problems, no doubt... but Pyro is just horrible. As you state, Otto, the core of the tree's issues become apparent now that they took away all the damage.

[Chickensevil]

A little further expansion on this thought, when you go full 36 AP build, the extra talents you take for PVE that are not damage are at least USEFUL to PVE content (all around damage reduction). You then get 8 points for the tank tree to grab ALL the DPS increase talents, and 2 points in the Pyro tree to grab ALL the important DPS talents. Leaving you with 0 DPS increasing talents left out on a full AP build.

 

I don't think this is clear enough to the devs on the flaw of Pyro. You are WASTING points on your talent tree to get to 36, points that in NO WAY help you in PVE content, are forced to skip out on points from the first 2 tiers of the other two trees. When you look from a Pyro perspective, there are 16 points total which could be allocated in the other trees which increase your damage, yet you only have 10 to allocate if you go a full 36 point build... So why would anyone WANT to sacrifice points for non-dps increasing talents in the Pyro tree to get to the top, on a lackluster top ability, when I can forgo all of that and just stick 16 points across the other two trees?