Mercenary Top 3 Answers!

[Zoom_VI]

I'd agree with this. There is NO NEED to overhaul the whole damn system...a few tweaks to costs and it's good to go as is. It's not at all difficult to work with the system we have....there's no need to reinvent it. That's wasted effort.

 

Personally all gunnery needs imo is AP's ammo regen where it is more of a constant regen instead of the current blocky regen. I.e currently your ammo is fine if the 6 sec regen fall right after a large ammo expenditure (like a grav>demo (1/3 of your heat right there)) but if that six second mark is right before it does almost nothing and screws with you

[Zoom_VI]

Nerfing Marauders damage And survivability?

 

Who are you and what have you done with our devs?

 

From these responses, if I was a maurader I would be scared for 2.5

[Capt_Beers]

Everything in this post relates to PvP

 

Some good answers here.

 

Unrelated to utility cooldowns, another thing that we have been internally considering for a while now is adjusting our pushback & interrupt systems because we believe the classes that have abilities with activation and channel times are simply being too greatly affected by those systems. These adjustments would primarily benefit all Mercenaries/Commandos and Sorcerers/Sages (Snipers/Gunslingers do not gain much because they are already immune to pushback & interrupts while in cover). Power Shot/Charged Bolts, Unload/Full Auto, and Tracer Missile/Grav Round are some key abilities that would benefit from these adjustments. Please let us know your opinion of the pushback & interrupt systems as they currently stand, and we will take the community’s feedback into consideration.

 

This would be very appreciated. The interrupt/pushback system is grossly in favor of melee classes. Interrupts are on a very low CD with no penalty for missing. Infiltration Shadows can keep a caster locked down pretty easily (Low Slash 15 sec CD, Mind Snap being a 15m with set bonus 8 sec CD, Force Stun, Force Wave, Vanish + Spinning Kick). Watchman Sents, as rare as they are in PvP, have a 6 second interrupt and a 12 second leap with no minimum range. Some points on this system:

 

- Casting while on the move sounds awesome. If it's not a technical hurdle that would delay this until the end of time I would love for this to be course of action.

 

- A system to penalize missed interrupts would be nice as well. A missed interrupt would grant an Unshakable-ish buff for XX seconds. This buff can be removed with another interrupt. For example Smasher #1 misses his interrupt. The Sage starts casting another ability with his new "Kind of like Unshakable but not quite" buff, Smasher #2 uses his interrupts and lands it but all he does is remove the buff and the ability gets cast as normal.

 

- Speeding up cast times would be nice but that would also require the re-hauling of the resource system.

 

Now, re-hauling the resource system is a frightening process to be quite honest. I see many places for mistakes to be made and for things to not work out just right. I like the tiered system as I think there should be a penalty for not keeping an eye on it. That being said sometimes you have to burn through your ammo/heat in order to keep people alive/get people dead. Maybe a wider "good" range but a sharper penalty

 

As far as making the resource pool easier to handle I would definitely prefer an active method of regen as opposed to a passive one. I would prefer to have to use an ability similar to Diagnostic Scan rather than to just have Cell Charger/Terminal Velocity be more effective.

 

Cost reductions while HtL/HO is active, Full Auto/Unload crits doing something and Hammer/Rapid Shots venting heat/gaing ammo being used for DPS specs makes sense to me. For the Healing tree I think having the stacks of CSC increase regen would be effective. in my opinion this would increase the depth of the class a little bit as you would have to choose to sacrifice you extra regen for some added burst healing.

 

Trauma Probe/Kolto Shell is an ability I would to see showcased some more. I think it should be one of the things that sets Commando/Merc healers apart form the other 2 healers. Front Line Medic/Peacekeepr should be removed, you tried to fix something and it didn't work, sorry but it's true. In it's place I would like to see a talent that builds on TP/KS instead, casting heals on targets affected by it have higher crit chance, increased healing, ammo regen on crits, CD reduction on Bacta Infusion/Emergency Scan on crits, things of that nature. Make it more of a spot light ability. Obviously this should be based on whether or not you decide to keep it for one target or several.

[cashogy_reborn]

Cash your getting ahead of yourself, they said they previously thought i.e. at launch that it was worth it. The dev response implies that they are no longer running under this and are rethinking how they are doing the trooper class.

 

 

Reread the first paragraph of the response to that question. Heavy Armor, ability to heal self/allies, and 30m range given as reasons for class performance.

 

They said they are aware of that short sidedness and the excessive penalties on casters. They are working on it for 2.5 are you really going to start bashing them for the past, even with the knowledge that they are working to correct their errors?

 

Yes, Im going to. The game will have been out for nearly 2 years by the time 2.5 comes out. Which means it has taken that long for the devs to realize their class design was utterly terrible. And they did not so much as acknowledge they fked up our class design, as much as they pinned it off on how overtuned Sniper and Marauder are. Its as much of a acknowledgement as it is a brushoff.

 

 

Where did they say they are nerfing others, they only implied that mauraders/snipers are overtuned. They are setting a baseline and classes above it like snipers/marauders are going to be nerfed. Does the value of the baseline really matter as long as all classes meet it?

 

 

So while some classes may pine to be given cooldowns that will make them as strong as Sentinels/Marauders, we would rather reduce the effectiveness of Marauder/Sentinel cooldowns to make them more like the other classes when it comes to survivability.

 

Dat reading......

 

 

Ugh these are the best answers they have ever given the playerbase on any issue, they are giving honest answers and are admitting past failures of their design, and are confirming that they are working to fix those failures. Not only that but they are telling us their intentions instead of letting us guess. WHY ARE YOU RAGING SO MUCH.??

 

 

This isnt me raging lol. These might be the best responses so far, but the bar was not very high. Its good that they finally seem to see that almost everything they designed about Merc/Mando was done badly, but call me jaded; I'll believe it when I see it

[TrooperSev]

I like the heat system as it is, but a without the free rail shot, heat management is much more dependent. With the free rs, I didn't feel the need to actively watch my heat and was more focused on the raid/fp. I don't think the rail shot should be tied to a set bonus though. It should work off something from the skill tree, like how pyros get a free proc and ap pt's get a free rp.

 

My idea for rail shot:

- Tracer lock now also reduces the heat of the next rail shot by 2 heat per stack. (Maybe lowering dmg per stack to 4-5% to offset a little)

 

Also, the interrupt change would be an amazing QOL adjustment. With the amount of raid wide dmg that the new bosses do, I find my channels constantly longer than expected. I can't count the number of times that my unloads last tick has been clipped. This would result in a dps boost, that would help up compare to snipers/marauders(if they do indeed get some nerfs).

[Capt_Beers]

Personally all gunnery needs imo is AP's ammo regen where it is more of a constant regen instead of the current blocky regen. I.e currently your ammo is fine if the 6 sec regen fall right after a large ammo expenditure (like a grav>demo (1/3 of your heat right there)) but if that six second mark is right before it does almost nothing and screws with you

 

If you could explain the difference between these two talents it would be appreciated (other than the cell requirement)

 

While Armor-piercing Cell is active, you generate [4 / 8] energy cells every 6 seconds.]

 

While High Energy Cell is active, you generate [4 / 8] energy cells every 6 seconds.

[TrooperSev]

If you could explain the difference between these two talents it would be appreciated (other than the cell requirement)

 

The vangaurd/powertech one was changed in today's patch. It now reads:

 

•Cell Generator has been redesigned: While High Energy Cell is active, players regenerate 1/2 energy cells every 1.5 seconds.

 

Its a more consistent regen now.

[Elyx]

Good Responses Eric. Tell the dev's that this post and teh shadow one were probably the best thought out and most informative of the whole process...hopefully you'll start using this model .

 

Notes;

 

Good to see you recognizing the OP aspect of maura/sent and slinger/sniper. when you join an OP run that has 6 gunslingers theres something off balance. prior to 2.0 mara/sniper were both in good positions...decent' damage and a bit of utility. now they are THE choice for Ops runs. its broke, Im glad you see that.

 

DON"T CHANGE HEAT RESOURCE! my gosh, please don't. Im tired of seeing class differences disspearing because people whine about this or that. you only need to make a few small changes.

 

Our resource is more like a smugglers, but our heat management is more like a Sorcs...but with a CD. we need more active heat resource options. the baseline is fine. add a talent like the scoundrel has in the healing tree that feeds back heat on crits....or have a talent that reduces the CD of our heat return with crits on auto shot.

 

and it sounds like DPS specs only need to get there free rail shot back. Personally, Id like to see a slightly shorter CD on it as well. it feels just a bit too long for a decent rotation. But....if you choose to use this option as heat reduction for the DPS classes, it NEEDS to be an inherent ability on the class. anytime you have a set bonus that is required for the class to function normally, then that is BROKE. that in itself should be a simple chance really...and doesn't need allot of testing, as it has already proven itself in the field via the set bonus.

 

But back to the resource management. giving us heat back on crits like the smuggler has would give us a smoother over-time heat return (or cooling, however you want to refer to it as). reducing the CD would give us more access to our burst heat reduction. I guess its an issue of....do we want less return over a longer time frame, or our burst recovery more often?

 

I like the burst idea. I've always enjoyed the burst capability of my merc, and that goes along with it. but either one is fine.

[MVaglin]

I really like these answers, they are detailed and thought through. Now they just need to deliver on these words as well.

 

As for a couple of direct questions we were asked.

 

1: in regards to arsenal's barrage proc. It currently sits at 45% which is terrible for RNG, because sometimes the damn thing simply won't proc. My suggestion would be to do something similar to what was done for Snipers with Snipe. Firing off Trace Missile gives you a buff that stacks twice. When you get two stacks, barrage procs. So basically remove the RNG completely from that ability. Every other TM resets unload and that's that. It does mean that the proc rate would be pretty much 50% instead of 45% which we have today, but that can be adjusted through other means.

 

2: About heat, I don't mind the heat system as it currently stands, it's just a little too harsh as is. Not many arsenal mercs were complaining about heat before the set bonus was changed. So just have the skill that reduces the heat cost on rail shot remove it completely, then we can keep the current set bonus and call it a day.

[windogie]

In total I agree with cash it feels like a brush off, especially since they said our dps is on par. This is not true only one of our specs is on par atm and that is only PVE, while interrupt problems being fixed helps one of our trees it still leaves our other spec lacking due to thermal detonator being cleanse able and our incendiary missile being very lack luster in 1v1 fights because of its sustained damage being reduced. I do not blame bioware for brushing off pyro spec because we did not focus on it as much but I will blame them for brushing our other dps problems as being their fault for making snipers and marauders to strong.

 

Heavy armor is fine what needs changing is arsenals damage reduction buff and shield which should also increase a reduction to elemental and internal damage which is not effected by reduction which makes us weaker when our class focuses on reduction only. If we changed that our survivability would be greatly altered and so would our in pvp dps.

 

Other than that I am proud of the devs they finally stepped up and gave us some real answers and who would of thought it would be to us, was really thinking they hated us for awhile.

[cashogy_reborn]

If you could explain the difference between these two talents it would be appreciated (other than the cell requirement)

 

I think he means Assault, where the heat vent is tied to using HiB

[Hell_Kaiser_Fett]

The reason why Mercenaries/Commandos were originally given longer, weaker cooldowns is because they are passively superior to many of the other classes in the game

 

I so wanted this to be true, seeing how most of the people playing were going to be Maras/Sents.

 

I appreciate that the devs are finally looking into our problems, considering the class has become the underdog of the game. However, I do think a few things would help us out pretty well. First would be not necessarily changing the resource system, but just tweaking it so we don't get burnt out and stuck with Rapid Shots, maybe by having Rapid Shots vent a little bit of heat. The other way would be to reduce the heat cost of a few abilities, that way our rotations aren't burnt out so quickly. The free RS would also aid us in the fight against our own resource system.

 

Combat wise, reducing the cooldown times of certain abilities would be helpful as well, especially for ops. The other thing that kills us are the cast times. The cast times themselves aren't really a problem, its the fact that they constantly get interrupted with us having no way to prevent it. Giving us an ability that enables a temporary immunity to interrupts would help, but giving us mobility with our casting abilities would be extremely helpful as well. I find trying to do an Ops raid that I get interrupted during my casts, or that I end up in the middle of a targeting reticule and have to stop my cast myself so I can avoid getting hit. Adding more mobility IMO would greatly increase a Bounty Hunter's survivability.

 

I am grateful to see that the devs aren't ignoring our concerns and are recognizing that there are problems that seriously need to get fixed. I hope to get these worked out by 2.5, but if we get them beforehand I wouldn't complain.

[ZeroPlus]

Regarding the Heat/Energy Cells system.

 

I personally like it, even though it can be severely punishing at times. Instead of "changing it fundamentally" maybe just consider changing the current "Regeneration Rate ranges".

 

Something like:

Fast: change it so that it is in effect from 0 to 50 Heat or 100 to 50 Energy Cells as opposed to the current upper/lower limit of 40 Heat or 60 Energy Cells (effectively an increase of 10 Heat/Energy Cells of the "Fast Regeneration" range).

Moderate: change it so that it is in effect from 50 to 70 Heat or 50 to 30 Energy Cells as opposed to the current 40 to 60 Heat or 60 to 40 Energy Cells (effectively no change to the "size" of the regeneration range, but it has been "shifted" up/down).

Slow: change it so that it is in effect from 70 to 90 Heat or 30 to 10 Energy Cells as opposed to the current 60 to 80 Heat or 40 to 20 Energy Cells (as with Moderate, effectively no change to the "size" of the regeneration range, it has just been "shifted" up/down).

Very Slow: change it so that it is in effect from 90 to 100 Heat or 10 to 0 Energy Cells as opposed to the current 80 to 100 Heat or 20 to 0 Energy Cells (basically, the most "punishing" Regeneration Rate range is reduced to the last 10 Heat/Energy Cells).

 

Not only is this something that you can test internally (and maybe publicly on the PTS? hint, hint ) but you should be able to do so quickly (comparatively speaking) because you aren't fundamentally changing the system but simply "tweaking the numbers".

 

NOTE: I am aware that the Trooper/Bounty Hunter shares the same Regeneration Rate ranges as the Smuggler/Imperial Agent classes. However, as has been noted to a certain extent above, all of the Smuggler/Imperial Agent Advanced Class trees have a way to restore Energy (EVERY SINGLE ONE!) meaning that the way they use and replenish their Energy is much more forgiving than what happens with the Trooper/Bounty Hunter. In effect this (proposed) change to the regeneration rates would have to be done to the Trooper/Bounty Hunter resource system ONLY.

 

Anyway, that is my feedback on the Heat/Energy Cells system.

[SpaniardInfinity]

Overall, definitely happy with these answers. The first step in solving a problem is admitting that there is one. A lot of the points made here are positive and I look forward to seeing how and when they are actually implemented. Good first step, now comes the real work: actually doing it. So we'll see how that goes.

 

As for ammo/heat, I have 2 remarks. The first is that I don't think an overhaul of the system is necessary per se, it's not so much that its a terrible system. The cooldowns are long as you addressed, but if they were lower, I think the difficulty of managing the resource would be fair. Easy to learn, hard to master. I have no qualms with that. But one or the other has to be done, and lowering the cooldowns would probably be easier especially since theoretically they could be seen a whole lot sooner than a massive overhaul that would likely be unseen until an expansion pack.

 

The second remark is a matter of preference, but its going to suck to have the Commando (and presumably Vanguard) ammo system changed UI-wise to that of the Bounty Hunter. I've played both and have always preferred the Trooper version purely because I find it more intuitive when reading it. It won't be the end of the world if this is changed, but I hope it can be disabled in the interface editor.

[Dedrayge]

For those that have concerns about pyro; Go read the answers for shadows. They ate looking at the possibility of having DoTs that can't be cleansed.

 

More mobile and completely mobile are two different things. Mobility is good but a ranged class should never be more mobile than a melee class simply because if that ever happen all melee classes would become completely pointless. After all why bring a melee dps when you can bring roughly the same dps from 30m away.... But other than that yeah merc does need some better escapes that are not on 1.5 min cooldowns and have to be saved for healers anyway.

 

Well...I do have my concerns about allowing mercs to move while casting. It's just that, in a PvP setying, it would make a few of their escapes feel more viable. It also means they wouldn't be shut down as easily.

 

Could always allow mercs to move while channeling unload but at reduced accuracy while moving.

[maverickmatt]

snip*

[ZeroPlus]

The second remark is a matter of preference, but its going to suck to have the Commando (and presumably Vanguard) ammo system changed UI-wise to that of the Bounty Hunter. I've played both and have always preferred the Trooper version purely because I find it more intuitive when reading it. It won't be the end of the world if this is changed, but I hope it can be disabled in the interface editor.

 

I think you misread what they wrote. Here is the relevant section again:

It should not be too difficult to add a 1-100 UI scale for Commando Energy Cells (like the one that Mercenaries can enable for Heat), and we will try to add that in as soon as we can.

 

Basically they are not talking about changing the Trooper's "ammo display" from the current "full to empty" (as opposed to the Bounty Hunter's "empty to full" display) but rather just adding a 1-100 UI scale on the actual "ammo bar" (as you currently see on your health bar if you activate the option). So that when you have, for example, 60 ammo you can glance at your "ammo bar" and see the text "60" written on the bar. Currently, Troopers have to guesstimate how much ammo they have whereas Bounty Hunters have the text displayed on their "heat bar".

[NathanielStarr]

I do like how they gave us some questions. I'd like to answer one of them. Maybe there should be a thread created for this reason, but I'll give my opinion here.

 

Being one of the classes that are easily interrupted is a problem. It is a severe disadvantage in high rated PvP. This is especially evident when comparing the heals of operatives to the other healers, not just when it comes to mercenaries.

 

While I like the game play idea of interrupts it is bad if only some of the classes are victims of this system. If it was there for everyone then it would be feasible, but as it stands its just a cross for some of us to bear.

[Macroeconomics]

We do not disagree with your final comment about the “unforgiving heat management system” and are curious to know whether the Mercenary/Commando community would like to see a resource overhaul at some point ...

Unrelated to utility cooldowns, another thing that we have been internally considering for a while now is adjusting our pushback & interrupt systems because we believe the classes that have abilities with activation and channel times are simply being too greatly affected by those systems. These adjustments would primarily benefit all Mercenaries/Commandos and Sorcerers/Sages [/color]

 

Well it is good that you can acknowledge that Merc/Commando has specific weaknesses that other classes do not. However, I for one, do not believe the correct response is to reduce those weaknesses. Rather I'd like to have them offset with greater strengths in other areas. Philosophically, if each classes weaknesses are hammered down to be similar to those of the other classes, classes become more uniform and the combat experience becomes more boring.

 

Right now, due to interrupt susceptibility, limited mobility, no access to auto-crits and long CDs on their key abilities, Merc/Commando is one of the most challenging classes in the game to play well. This is why so few Merc/Commandos are utilized in ranked pvp. Yet I do not want to see the classes weaknesses ameliorated so that the class is easy to play - we all know that will just lead to nerfs to the class in the future. Leave the salient vulnerabilities of the Merc/Commando class. Just give us a reward to go along with that risk so that IF you are successful playing a Merc/Commando, IF you can figure out a way to get your casts off and survive, you at least do damage equivalent to that of the preferred dps classes. Right now for top pvp players, Merc/Commando is lagging about 50% behind the best dps classes. That is not a good balance of risk/reward.

[NathanielStarr]

I don't think the system needs to be changed either, but the idea with some moves giving back energy is a good one.

[DkSharktooth]

Why has it taken so so sooooo long to come to these conclusions at all? We have been posting about these problems on class forums for about 1-2 YEARS now. I have given up personally on posting anything or any feedback on class forums because it's clear you don't read them at all or post feedback there. You should listen to your community more, we aren't all random idiots who don't know anything about our class or the game.

[Phrase]

Heat management/ CD reduction could be dealt with by making Rapid Venting function like Energy Rebounder and reduce the CD of Vent Heat/ TSO on crits, then flip it with Improved Vents in their respective trees.

 

As for casting and interrupts, a few things come to mind:

 

1) Alacrity is useless as a cast time reduction in any meaningful way. Alacrity needs to be a stat that can offer 18-25% cast time reduction when stacked to DR for it to be really useful.

 

2) The other really interesting idea I've seen from a soon to be released MMO is the idea of push and hold casting. Basically a player pushes the ability key and releases it between 0 and full cast time. The ability then does a percentage of its tooltip based on how long the cast was held. Need a quick RS proc, hold Powershot for a split second. It won't do much dmg, but you get to fish for that proc. Same with building Tracer stacks or Power Barrier as well as getting Barrage procs. Might also help create more opportunities for cat-and-mouse juke casting.

 

3) Interrupts should cost resource.

 

Thanks to the dev and community team for taking the time to listen.

[NathanielStarr]

It seems that afterall it will be PvE that brings some classes down. But you know it is those classes that go on and on about how easy PvE is and make fun of bioware for it.

[KhalDrogoe]

Actually decent answers for a change.

 

But we've been talking about this crappy resource management since release....

[manchusabre]

I don't like force management on sage, unless you are running tk spec. I don't see making ammo more like sage being a move in the right direction. I would prefer it not to be messed with than go in a wrong direction. Trying to do a burn phase or messing up my rotation is about the only time I really have issues with ammo. Interesting they notice the classes people are going with now for harder operations. Right now it just seems like gunslingers/snipers are the way to go. But what do you expect when you make fights that are so tight on dps? I don't see nerfing the higher dps classes as being a good thing either. These higher dps classes are allowing people to bring in the lesser dps classes to cover the difference. Not all dpsers are idiot savants being perfect on a boss fight all the time. Utility can be nice but that just means you aren't dpsing the boss like you should.