Operative DPS Brainstorming

[snave]

The two main problems with Concealment are lack of sustained damage (mostly from energy management issues) and lack of survivability. Lethality damage is moderately good (some say it's "fluff", but a triple cull on anyone will be insane damage), but again the spec is crippled by virtually no survivability.

 

In this thread already are dozens of ideas to improve both aspects. Ones that I am personally in favour of (that I feel balance us but don't make us overpowered):

 

For Damage:

• Granting the ability to use Hidden Strike while Sneak is active (but only knockdown when from stealth).
  
• Reducing the cost of Explosive Probe for Concealment so that there is some more sustained damage (currently it costs too much and can quickly leave an Operative out of energy). This can also be acquired by reworking energy management or adding more useful talents that address energy regeneration.
  
• Adding a strong healing debuff to Acid Blade or Laceration. This will add utility to Concealment for lowering the global TTK (which is currently too high imo) and intrinsically buffing Concealment damage against healers without people screaming nerfs about huge Concealment numbers (lol).
  
• Making Acid Blade a passive (permanent) effect.
  
• Hidden Strike from stealth should be 100% crit chance. There is nothing more unsatisfying in this game than being a "slippery" snake and working your way around to prepare burst on a target in the back only to open up on them with a lackluster 4k hit.
  
• Make Tactical Advantages last longer for DPS.
  
• Granting CC immunity for a few seconds after exiting stealth.
  

 

For Survivability (both Lethality and Concealment):

• Move the heal on Shield Probe collapse from the Medicine tree to the Concealment tree, and buff the amount that it heals (it's way too weak right now).
  
• Reduce the cost of Exfiltrate or have some sort of proc to make it cheap/free. (DPS only, not for healers)
  
• Merge Shadow Operative Elite and Quickening so that both Lethality and Concealment can acquire the benefits of both. Don't allow the Medicine tree to acquire them, though.
  
• Change the Cloaking Screen mechanic to be "stronger", i.e. more like the Marauder vanish. Perhaps change Sneak/Cloaking Screen so that AoE damage/Stealth Scans do not bring us out of stealth while either is active. This should only be for DPS specs, as it would be overpowered to give this to healers as well.
  
• Implementation of an AoE damage reduction talent so that we're not torn to shreds by 3 smashers. Put this HIGH in a DPS tree so that healers cannot obtain (Operative healer with AoE damage reduction would be too strong).
  

 

Also, PLEASE ADDRESS OUR SET BONUSES. THE PVE SET BONUSES PUT THE PVP ONES TO SHAME.

 

TL;DR: There's lots that can be done (and needs to be done) for Operative DPS. Give us something useful for 2.5 please.

 

Just quoting this post because it sums up pretty much what should be done and there's no real need for another 10 players to write out exactly the same thing. I'd love to see backstab on a shorter cooldown and to have it's positional requirements removed (but that's purely because of the crappy engine the game uses which tells me I'm not behind a target when I clearly am).

[znihilist]

snip

 

For once someone with an actual integrated idea the class. But while I don't fully agree with everything you proposed, I actually like the ideas!

[gaboost]

First of all, i'd really like to know BW's vision of an operative. What exactly are they supposed to excel at, because right now, I can say that no one ever brings a dps operative in arenas or even raids.

 

So here's a couple suggestion, these are individual suggestions and shouldn't be taken as a whole.

 

- Tactical advantages duration is way to short, you get stunned once and they're all gone, when i'm in lethality, i put 8 points in the healing tree to get longer TA's and faster heals and getting TA's while healing, that way you can get back in the fight right away.

 

Or i'd even say to simply get rid of TA's and slap cooldowns on everything, lot more work since it would require to rebalance all 3 specs but could also fix operative healers.

 

- Sever tendon should be more than just a snare/root. It should become an attack with real damage like shock but with a snare effect as a bonus, it would also give us a reliable 10m attack like so many other melee classes, because let's face it, we are the most melee class of all melee classes.

 

It should be a root then a snare for all 3 specs, simply reduce the snare duration. The big problem about snares is their weakness versus leapers.

 

- Explosive probe and snipe, I suggest you simple remove them and replace them with abilites more fitted for an operative, you clearly said that cover was never intended to be used by operative, neither should explosive probe and snipe then... plus using explosive probe in our rotation can really mess our energy regen.

 

- Add stances for each spec maybe? I can see the concealment one being Acid blade, it could help energy since you wouldn't have to cast it everytime. Or simply make acid blade a passive ability.

 

Acid blade right now doesn't make any sense. As long as it's not proc'ed, you don't benefit from the 30% armor penetration, that means your fist hidden strike will never be your best hit.

 

- Infiltrate and sneak, i feel like these 2 abilities could do a lot more, infiltrate is useful just at the beginning a warzone and it's also difficult to coordinate people. In arenas, it's used once and then you just forget about it.

 

It should have a in combat version of it, 6 sec in combat stealth or i don't know, because when you compare it with other classes 3 min cooldowns abilities, it falls pretty far behind, it doesn't bring you anything personally, you already have stealth.

 

And sneak, just find something else than a 50% speed increase, a speed increase without movement impairing immunity is simply useless.

 

- Evasion and cloaking screen, see these 2 abilities are often used together, cleanse everything and then go into stealth but the truth is, you're still vulnerable to a lot of aoe's or even getting doted at the last second, i feel like shroud is a better ability just for that, because you can't get smashed or doted right after going in stealth.

 

Give a 4 sec immunity to everything after cloaking screen? Or put another purge on that ability too?

 

- Kolto injection and kolto infusion, i remember you saying that heals on an operative are part of his survivability but how can you actually cast an heal in melee range... imo they both have really long activation time, maybe reduce one of the 2 just like mercs or sorcs who both have a 1.5 cast heal.

 

- Attack roll, alright this one sounds crazy but it could be nice to have some auto attack that targets enemies near you when you roll next to them, nothing huge, something in the same range as suppressive fire or sweeping blaster in terms of damage.

 

- Double knife attack, don't know exactly what it'd do but i feel like operatives could use another ability and something that would look like the operative /flourish emote would be pretty sick.

 

Lethality does feel kinda awkward, that mix of different range abilities is just ugh.

 

I'd even sacrifice attack power for better defensives cooldowns and better mobility. Some sort of get in/get out playstyle.

 

Oh and jeezus, of all classes, i think advanced prototype powertechs are the hardest to kill as an operative, they move too fast, you just can't get any solid hit on them, can't control them or get behind them because of their range and speed.

 

I'm not looking for extra opening burst, i don't want to kill someone without them being able to fight back but it feels like we should because without stealth, your options are limited.

 

Can't think of nothing else right now but i wanted to point something out. People complained that operatives are shady and slippery... well i thought they were designed that way... i mean why are you complaining that you can't get the killing blow on a fleeing operative. When fleeing and recuperating, it's just like they were in the respawn box, same thing, they're not bringing to their team.

 

Why complain about the roll? Of course, it's annoying in huttball but did anyone got killed by a rolling operative? I don't think so. ( BTW.... FIX ROLL BUG, OMG!!! )

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Make stim boost much better to reduce energy problems.

Maybe increase the damage of corrosive dart so they do more damage without being bursty and OP in PVP.

 

Just give us back the old Stim Boost, nothing was wrong with it before so why was it changed?

 

Operative DPS is kinda under whelming, I think a minor change for Concealment that would make them work a little better is, with a talent such as Shadow Operative Elite (the one that makes the roll have a % chance to activate Dodge) allow Backstab (a major DPS component) Gain tactical advantage. That would be a really simple addition to Concealment that would allow for more TA management.

 

Lethality, give them a 30% chance for DoT ticks to grant TA.

 

And while your at it make the default stacks of TA go up to 3 and everyone gets 3 stacks.

 

those would be 4 minor changes that, would bring Operative DPS back up to atleast semi-par.

[hallucigenocide]

Just give us back the old Stim Boost, nothing was wrong with it before so why was it changed?

 

Operative DPS is kinda under whelming, I think a minor change for Concealment that would make them work a little better is, with a talent such as Shadow Operative Elite (the one that makes the roll have a % chance to activate Dodge) allow Backstab (a major DPS component) Gain tactical advantage. That would be a really simple addition to Concealment that would allow for more TA management.

 

Lethality, give them a 30% chance for DoT ticks to grant TA.

 

And while your at it make the default stacks of TA go up to 3 and everyone gets 3 stacks.

 

those would be 4 minor changes that, would bring Operative DPS back up to atleast semi-par.

 

a 30% chance would probably make them too powerfull.. that'd be like the healers with their 30% chance for ta on hots(crazy *** burst)

[Alavarius]

Concealment:

 

DPS:

Acid Blades - passive buff instead of having to awkwardly work it into the rotation would be great.

 

Backstab - Give it a 6s cooldown so we can keep acid blade up continuously and so we dont have awkward periods where we are forced to use Flurry of Shots.

 

Hidden Strike - Make it a modifier on using backstab from stealth: 20% increased damage, doesn't activate the cooldown, 1.5s knockdown...clears up our bars for essentially an identical ability.

 

Explosive Probe - reduced energy, do not require cover (now that cover is useless)

 

Sever Tendon - If we are going to get a surge bonus to this ability, let's make it do damage we would actually like to crit with.

 

Defensive:

 

Our biggest issue isn't necessarily AOE damage, it is how ridiculously squishy we are when either a) rooted or b) stunned. If we aren't under one of those two controlling effects, we have a reasonable chance of avoiding the damage..at least in the hands of a competent OP. The following are all potential options:

 

Slippery - take 30% less damage while stunned or rooted.

 

Shady - Every time we take damage, the cool down on Cloaking screen is reduced by 3s, cannot happen more than once every 1.5 seconds.

 

Sneak needs to be more useful out of stealth...potential just add to it that you are immune to roots and stuns for its duration... this would be instead of Slippery.

 

Revitalizers - used to be an always on 3% of HP/ 3 seconds as long as we kept stim boost up. With the changes to stim boost, this talent should have been reworked to just be 3% of HP every 3 seconds...baseline...or 5% HP/second for the duration of Sneak.

[j-cart]

For once someone with an actual integrated idea the class. But while I don't fully agree with everything you proposed, I actually like the ideas!

 

 

Glad you enjoyed the read! I am sure the numbers can change, since I don't have any method of testing them in a game situation. However I do believe that their ability to control a single target well enough will allow for them to maintain a threat without having to be this cookie cutter rogue class that it is expected to be.

 

I also tried to do my best to not allow for any self healing or AoE damage reduction. To me the class should be slippery, but still fragile.

[iRedRIng]

I'll only comment on concealment as I haven't played lethality a large amount. While I think it would be hilarious if Hidden Strike were made an auto crit ability so that 4 concealment ops could destroy someone in arenas, I don't think op dps really need more burst.

 

On people who say they want hidden strike to just be more of a passive buff when backstab is used in stealth, personally I don't like this change simply because I love dropping from above and shoving my knife down someone's throat. More of a visual preference than a gameplay one though and wouldn't be a huge deal if the change to hidden strike were actually made. On the change to acid blade not having to be cast, I really enjoy the sound and more "finking" is always better.

 

The real problem is that an operative's survivability is terrible when you are cc'd. One of the things I have always wished for, expecially when against a mara, is for sneak to break roots on use and possibly to make you immune from roots for the duration.

 

I do not believe that you should make the change where healers can't be leapt/pulled in cover for dps operatives. Maybe have an ability already in the tree add that ability back in.

 

I think Evasive Imperative is needed more in a dps operative tree rather than in the healing tree.

 

Shield Probe - It sucks. Maybe make it absorb x percent of total damage for y seconds?

 

If the evasion proc is going to be on exfiltrate, I think it should have a 100 percent chance and continue to have its internal cooldown. (Maybe move it to a 20 sec internal cooldown since you increased the chance.)

 

I'll have more to say about energy issues in a later post. They have gotten way better, but still could use a slight tilt further.

[Cryowolf]

Suggestions for Lethality PvP: ( Not all at once of course, just a list of possible ideas)

 

1. Add to Lethal Dose that DoTs that crit have a 25% chance to grant a TA. Can only occur once every 9 seconds.

 

2. Take Evasive Imperative from Medicine and put in Lethality tree. Add to Quickening that while under the effects of Evasion you are immune to pulls and leaps like Hold the Line.

 

3. If not #2, then give Counterstike 3 seconds of immunity to roots/slows after use.

 

4. Add a healing reduction component to Weakening Blast.

 

5. Make Toxic Regulators work for everyone's mezzes.

 

6. In Escape Plan, remove the Smuggle reduction and add a cost reduction to Exfiltrate.

 

7. Take Med Screen from Medicine and put in Lethality tree. Significantly buff the heal and make it AoE to heal 5 allies within 5 meters.

 

8. Add a duration increase of 6 seconds for TA somewhere in the Lethality tree.

 

9. Change Flash Powder to 25/50% over 2/4 seconds.

[CaptainApop]

Just give us back the old Stim Boost, nothing was wrong with it before so why was it changed?

 

 

It never went anywhere o.0

 

You still have it, it's called preparedness as of 2.0 and doesn't cost TA's to maintain.

 

Stim boost the cooldown is just a free TA + regen. Could be more noticeable though.

[Racter]

I'll only comment on concealment as I haven't played lethality a large amount. While I think it would be hilarious if Hidden Strike were made an auto crit ability so that 4 concealment ops could destroy someone in arenas, I don't think op dps really need more burst.

 

On people who say they want hidden strike to just be more of a passive buff when backstab is used in stealth, personally I don't like this change simply because I love dropping from above and shoving my knife down someone's throat. More of a visual preference than a gameplay one though and wouldn't be a huge deal if the change to hidden strike were actually made. On the change to acid blade not having to be cast, I really enjoy the sound and more "finking" is always better.

 

The real problem is that an operative's survivability is terrible when you are cc'd. One of the things I have always wished for, expecially when against a mara, is for sneak to break roots on use and possibly to make you immune from roots for the duration.

 

I do not believe that you should make the change where healers can't be leapt/pulled in cover for dps operatives. Maybe have an ability already in the tree add that ability back in.

 

I think Evasive Imperative is needed more in a dps operative tree rather than in the healing tree.

 

Shield Probe - It sucks. Maybe make it absorb x percent of total damage for y seconds?

 

If the evasion proc is going to be on exfiltrate, I think it should have a 100 percent chance and continue to have its internal cooldown. (Maybe move it to a 20 sec internal cooldown since you increased the chance.)

 

I'll have more to say about energy issues in a later post. They have gotten way better, but still could use a slight tilt further.

 

It is worth pointing out that 4 hidden strike crits without both relics procced on all 4 ops is not enough damage to kill an Obroan geared dps, tank or healer. They either need to give us a substantial damage increase or give us a pretty large survivability increase. Maybe all of one and half of another.

 

Energy wise, if acid blade was free I think we'd be fine. Cleanse being cheaper/free/off the gcd would be great in regs, but seeing as we can only cleanse tech and no tech dot class is really arena viable I don't see it helping us greatly one way or the other. Would be nice if we could get a cheaper/free explosive probe.

 

Removing/combining hidden strike into backstab would reduce our opening burst potential even more. Definitely do not want. Would be nice to use it while Sneak was up, should knockdown 100% of the time. Assassins have a 4s mes on a 15s cd that procs a 10k maul and us getting a 1.5s knockdown max 3 times every 45s is OP? How would that be OP? It's not. Not too mention hidden strike still builds as much resolve as it did when the knockdown lasted 3s instead of 1.

 

Pretty much a waste of time posting here. They wont give us the survivability changes and/or damage increases we need to be considered for a spot in arenas. Seem pretty content for this spec to be dead forever.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Racter

[Vorna]

It is good to see you, BioWare, actually attempt to open communication with us. But this should have been done over a year ago, and at this point you have fully exhausted our goodwill.

 

I shall categorize my suggestions by what needs to be done immediately to improve the quality of life for the specs, and then go into more fanciful ideas about fixing our problems.

 

I say fanciful, because you ignored all our recommendations in beta, opting instead to launch the class with the most broken spec in game (lethality/dirty fighting) and the functioning but under-developed burst spec that allowed people to stack adrenals and buffs to perform stunlock kills as 50s on players sub-50. Then you nerfed that into the ground, and never went back to look at the carnage you inflicted on it. We also were the worst of the healers at launch just to add to the misery of our class.

 

So when I say fanciful, I mean in your terms for our class, BioWare. Other sane people would consider them the normal sort of buffs and changes to make us a fully featured class (which we currently are not).

 

Without further ado~

 

*~-------~*

 

Immediate Changes to Improve our lives:

 

---

 

Non-spec:

 

DO NOT TAKE AWAY CROUCH AND HARD COVER BENEFITS in 2.5

 

I cannot stress this enough. Not only are you taking a core component of what the class' identity is, you are severely nerfing Lethality/Dirty Fighting and making the one job Concealment/Scrapper were good at in huttball (defense) impossible. Before all else, this nerf cannot go into effect.

 

And I want to expand upon the Huttball point a little. You have teased a new huttball warzone, this implies we will now be dealing with two warzones in the mix that we are extremely poor at. And if this nerf goes into effect, will make us nearly useless unless we're healing. We depend on crouch to not allow people to leap or pull us, this is most important on defense. We have no Knockback, no Pull, and no Leap. This means we have no way to stop leapers from using us as a target to leap to unless we're stealthed if you take away crouch benefits. We can't knock them back off. We can't jump in the pit and pull them with us. We can't leap to the catwalks from the pit. This makes us COMPLETELY USELESS AND A LIABILITY in Huttball defense.

 

If ONLY for this reason, this is the reason this insult of a nerf cannot go live.

 

 

---

 

Concealment/Scrapper:

- Revert Backstab/Backblast to an 8 second CD.

- Remove the positional requirement on Hidden Strike/Shoot First (QOL change to make our lives less annoying).

 

-Create or add on to an existing talent: When stealth is broken without using Hidden Strike/Shoot First a 10 second effect allowing the use of Hidden Strike/Shoot First out of Stealth is granted (QOL change so we aren't so hurt by having stealth broken in a chaotic melee with AOEs flying everywhere).

 

-Combine Inclement Conditioning/Brawler's Grit and Scouting/Shifty-eyed into a single talent.

-Scrap Revitilizers/Surprise Comeback and rework it.

Suggestions:

• Reduce damage taken by 15% for duration of alacrity buff.
  
• Grants a stack of 3 "bladeturns"- Blocks the damage of the next three damaging attacks on the player.
  
• Grants a stack of reactive heals- heals the player when they are attacked for the number of stacked buffs.
  
• Grants immunity to pulls and knockbacks for the duration of the alacrity buff.
  
• A 50% resist for (6-10?) seconds to force and tech effects (Sins/Shadows have a 10 second 50% dodge with Deflection and a 100% force/tech resist for 3 seconds- this would put us on generally the same level, but with the effects inversed).

-Ghost/Fight or Flight needs a reworking. There are many fine suggestions in this thread already.

 

 

---

 

Lethality/Dirty Fighting:

-Toxic Regulators/Concussion now blocks your periodic effects from from breaking sleep effects FROM ALL PLAYERS (A MAJOR QOL change I believe all dot specs should have, we currently are substantially less group friendly because of this).

-Combine Augmented Shields/Hotwired Defenses and Escape Plan/Smuggled Defenses into a single talent.

 

-Buff Counterstrike/Dirty Trickster (this is in addition to it's current function).

Suggestions:

• Reduces damage taken by 50% for 6 seconds (I've long wanted pvp detaunts in this game).
  
• Heals the player for 20% of their maximum HP.
  
• Grants immunity to all movement impairing effects for 8 seconds.
  
• Grants a stack of 3 "bladeturns"- Blocks the damage of the next three damaging attacks on the player.
  
• A 50% resist for (6-10?) seconds to force and tech effects (Sins/Shadows have a 10 second 50% dodge with Deflection and a 100% force/tech resist for 3 seconds- this would put us on generally the same level, but with the effects inverted).

 

 

*~-------~*

 

"Fanciful" changes to make us an interesting and engaging fully featured class:

 

---

 

Non-spec:

 

-Our set bonuses suck. They really really suck.

 

Like for realz.

 

Fix them.

 

-Increase the amount of time the Tactical Advantage/Upperhand buff is active.

QOL change that would make our lives as dps much better.

 

-Allow every spec to spec into a way to improve Countermeasures/Surrender for pvp.

Though Lethality/Dirty Fighting has a lackluster talent to add to this ability, I'd like to see the ability transformed into something really useful in pvp. Personally, I would make detaunts function like pvp detaunts in WAR. I have always been a bit annoyed and confused as to why detaunts weren't migrated with guard and taunt. But failing that, let's have something interesting to spec into for each tree for this ability (including healing). I earlier detailed some changes I'd like to see added to Counterstrike/Dirty Trickster, to give an idea of things you can do with it. I'm not going to give specific suggestions here, because the sky's the limit. Have some fun, make this skill worthwhile in pvp~

 

 

---

 

Concealment/Scrapper:

 

-Give us a new ability- A 20m ground-targeted teleport on a 45s cooldown.

I have long wanted a teleport for the class, due to our awfulness at huttball (and I played when practically ALL that popped was huttball). I was actually quite disturbed when 2.0 came around that sins/shadows got a teleport (and my other main is a sin...). Now their teleport wasn't exactly what I was wanting, and I've come to appreciate the roll for certain benefits- BUT the roll is currently a bit of a liability in combat.

 

So, to fix the issue with Concealment/Scrapper missing a third clickable ability talent, and to deal with some of the issues that still plague the class, I suggest this ability. Used like any ground-targeted ability, it teleports the player to the location they click. 20m so that it can be effective in huttball in getting up on the catwalks again (one would drop the huttball if holding it while using). This ability would be a boon both defensively and offensively, and add to the weak utility of the Concealment/Scrapper spec.

 

-Waylay/Sawed Off is unimpressive.

A 4% damage increase to Backstab/Backblast is just... sad. I really have no suggestions for this other than... do something to improve it.

-Give us 30% AOE damage reduction.

We're one of the most strict mdps and we don't have this... it's just embarrassing Bioware. What have you been thinking?

-I add my voice to the chorus of people that want this spec to be more debuff based.

My favorite stealthers have been debuff based. A healing debuff would be lovely (incoming or outgoing). I'd also like to see the Acid Blade/Flechette Round debuff reverted to it's original armor debuff value. Other possible debuffs include -accuracy (considering the "Scrapper" doesn't have a sand in the eyes ability, this needs to be rectified!), -power, -crit, -main stat... etc. There's a lot that can be done here, and I find debuffing stealthers more engaging to play than burst... and they're generally tolerated better by other players.

 

 

---

 

Lethality/Dirty Fighting:

 

-Allow a way for us to gain Tactical Advantage/Upperhand from Overload Shot/Quickshot.

This is not something new. We've been asking for this since beta. We've been asking for this SINCE the Tactical Advantage/Upperhand mechanic went live in beta. Perhaps now, over two years later, you might actually take this request seriously.

 

-Give us a talent that increases the range of Shiv/Blaster Whip to 10m.

Failing that you don't allow us to gain TA/UH off of Overload/Quickshot, this is another option. For Shiv you could use the knife toss animation used for the snare. For Blaster Whip you can either create a new animation with a tossed blaster, or just value functionality over style and use a normal shot animation/scattergun animation.

 

-Give us a talent that increases all 10m attacks by 5 (to 15m total) or 10m (to 20m total).

Though there is a bonus to having them stop at 10m (between 5 and 10m being the sweet spot for strict melee classes with leap), I've always wanted to see the class as a sort of mobile midrange rdps, like the 'Quick Shootin'' Squig Herder (a masterfully designed class that BioWare could learn a lot from). I feel this would give the class some uniqueness, and add to our tactics.

-Give us a talent that gives full portable cover benefits.

I have been staunchly against the removal of portable cover since beta. I already stated that the crouch/hard cover nerfs CANNOT go live, and established we need them. This is to give Lethality/Dirty Fighting a small edge against ranged. Since I see the spec as a midranged mobile rdps, I'd like to see it get a little bit extra in that category. Currently crouch is great against mdps, but not useful against rdps... this would help us against rdps, particularly when they knock us away to unload on us, we could enter portable cover and get some defense against their attacks. Not much, but it would be something.

 

 

-----

Seeing as I play both a Scoundrel and Operative on a daily basis, I feel uncomfortable posting this in just one of the threads, so I shall post it in both. Undoubtedly Musco and the devs are reading both, so this is not my indictment that one thread might be favored over the other, but just my feeling that I don't want to play favorites with a class I play both sides of.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Vorna

[FoE_Khorne]

Up until Oct 24th, I had been thinking that allowing Hidden Strike to be used from Cover as well as Stealth might be a good idea (possibly restricting the knockdown to Stealth-only).

 

As a QoL fix, I'd like to see Hidden Strike and Backstab combined into one ability (knockdown when used from stealth). Right now, due to engine, lag, etc., a lot of combats start out for my Conc Op as:

 

o Approach target in Stealth from Behind.

o Something (AoE, Advanced Stealth Detection, Lunar Phase) breaks my stealth but client is not updated (or I just lose the race condition between ability activation and update) so I don't know this until...

o Use Hidden Strike -- fails (Must Be In Stealth To Use This Ability)

o MOB moves slightly (no actual "back" indicators, so I can't always tell, especially if my team is dropping a ton of AoEs so all I see is explosions)

o Use Backstab -- fails (Must Be Behind Target)

o Start using other abilities, but I'm already down about 2 GCDs and have lost my opener and initial TA

 

If Hidden Strike / Backstab were combined, I'd still get a decent opener (Backstab) instead of nothing for the first few seconds.

 

As a plus, the redesign could make it so that the "optimal" opener had a second attack that was optimal regardless of whether the first attack was stealthed or not.

 

Please for the love of god... NO!

[eartharioch]

Please for the love of god... NO!

 

Uh, thanks for the feedback? I didn't think I was asking for much.

 

1) I want Hidden Strike / Backstab combined so that if I press one key, and I am in stealth and behind the target I get the Hidden Strike effect (no change). If I am behind the target (but not stealthed) I get the standard Backstab attack. The only "changes" are that I'm more likely to not lose an attack and that I get a keybind freed up. Nothing would change about the positional requirements or damage.

 

2) Currently Hidden Strike generates TA, so if I use Hidden Strike then any other attack, I know I have a TA for the second attack. I would like the combined HS/BS attack to leave me with a TA regardless of whether or not I was considered stealthed or not (maybe a check of whether or not I was stealthed or not "recently", so that it's only available on opening, not every Backstab).

 

There are plenty of other suggestions (some of which I support) that would increase the effectiveness of our opener, but (in this suggestion) I am truly aiming for just a QoL improvement.

[Fallenturtle]

My ideas from an old operative.. (main since pre launch) This may seem a little cynical but I had unsubbed because A)the state of our class is and still is terrible when you compare it to every other class in the game, b) because dailies are not content bioware!, and C) Because up until now they have shown no interest in seriously looking at rebalancing the classes. *note: Only resubbed to get in on the space combat deal*

 

As stated in this thread there are 2 major things that us DPS operatives lack.

A) Survivability

B) reliable sustained damage and burst.

 

First off: Survivability

 

In PVE, I think we are somewhat fine based on my experiences with HM/NiM Darvannis (i just came back so I haven't seen the two new raids) a 30% aoe reduction would be nice, but not necessary as we shouldn't really be taking damage to begin with.

 

PVP is where I think our lack of survivability is noticeable. Just about 30 minutes ago I got kinda pissed off at how fragile we are while doing damage (honestly, Assassins healing to full with no healer around is rather BS Bioware, but that's another thread) Shield probe, Action Roll, Evasion, and our weak heals are not enough to save us in a fight. We also can be easily stun locked, and slowed to death with no way of cleansing most of the slows except via Evasion.

 

Sustained DPS and "On Demand" Burst.

 

In PVE this is where it's the most noticeable. Yes, I know leth can get up to 3k on dummies ( I had 2.9k before I quit for 2 months to play WOW(again)), but with most of the fight mechanics I've been seeing with guildies streams in the new raid, we can't reliably maintain the necessary buffs to maintain our dps.

 

PVP our DPS Is pathetic. I'm not talking "fluff aoe damage" but I'm talking both Group and single target damage.

 

As concealment you live and die by the crits, yet, unlike other classes there is nothing in the tree that can guarantee you a crit. Also, you "blow your cds" so to speak and only manage to get a person in equal gear down to 40-50% where as all the other classes manage to do 100-120% damage when they blow all of their cooldowns(assassins come to mind with them doing 40k in one rotation while you're sitting there stunned or knocked down)

 

Lethality in pvp, the dots don't tick hard enough in my opinion and it's too hard to get a TA to cull in the swirling melee that is a warzone. I've had someone (with Sever tendon on them) Kite me and stay just outside shiv range guarenteeing that I never got to cull.

 

In both specs there is no deterrent towards a healer. Any damage we do is instantly healed up before we can even do our big moves again. Heaven forbit we are going against an op healer! we'd never kill them.

 

Suggestions:

Note, There have already been several but I'm just going to touch on a few of them I think are good.

Survivability:

~ Make it so that we can actually cast our heals in combat. Long cast timer on our only major heal and our secondary heal costing a TA is not an incentive for us to use it in the heat of battle. Every other DPS class with heals secondary has either an instant heal, or an ability to proc one on demand.. Why can't we?

~AOE Immunity/damage immunity during Cloaking Screen's debuff. With game lag and input lag, cloaking screen breaks before we have a chance to break free from combat to go hide and heal up or to 'retreat to a better position'

~Reduced damage while Stunned, rooted, Mezzed etc. more for PVP but it's rather annoying when you're sitting there taking 8-10k mauls, Rail shots etc with no way to fight back or to get away after you've used your 1.5m(2m as concealment) Break. stuns happen more than once every 2 minutes (some classes have more stuns/roots than we do on shorter cooldowns)

 

Damage

~Longer TA's/Better ways to get them. It's been stated throughout this thread that TA's are either too short to last through a stun, too hard to get outside of 2 moves (one that you have even stated bioware that should only be used ONCE per fight) and a Cooldown, yet half of our high damage moves AND sustained DPS require us to keep them up.

~ For the love of all that is holy, a way to make sure that we know which dots are ours!. I play leth as my main spec and it's fracking hard in the swirling fracas of a melee to know which dart is mine, or the snipers. I've refreshed a lot of dots prematurely because I think that the dart that's about to fall off is mine.

~ On demand crit for HS. If you want us to only use this move once per combat, then let us make sure that it's worthy of being used.

~Aoe's Breaking Stealth/Positional requirements. In both PVE and PVP it's difficult with server/client lag to determine whether you are at a person's side, front, or back, also, with every AOE going around these days it's hard for us to sneak in for our "once per fight" move as well as our backstab.

 

Other suggestions have already been discussed and I like them.

[Syberduh]

Lacerate is still a pretty meh skill considering it soaks up 7 ability points. Lowering the CD on backstab by 1 second per lacerate would be nice. A stacking buff that increases backstab crit chance on each use of lacerate would be a way to generate some on-demand burst in a longer fight.

 

Adding a trauma debuff to acid blade is a great idea that will make operatives more desirable without causing people to scream for nerfs. Perhaps most importantly, it's an easy buff to pvp that will have absolutely no effect on pve balance.

 

AoE damage reduction seems like a loooong overdue no-brainer.

 

Yeah pretty much everything Scold said.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Syberduh

[wishihadaname]

I've played lethality since launch, and since then my biggest complaint has always been that we are constantly forced into melee range while having neither the speed/evasions of concealment or the defenses/heals of medic. Here is a quick rundown of what I see as our design concept, what we do well, and what we need to improve in to be competitive.

 

The Concept: Toxic Skirmisher

The lethality agent is a cunning and calculating opponent, showing up when their enemies are weakened, and vanishing when openly confronted. Rather than rely on dispatching lone targets quickly like concealment, lethality plays the numbers game. Lethality is about spreading the lovely effects of your neurotoxins to every target in sight, then lining up someone choking on their own blood and putting them out of your misery. When confronted by a strong opponent, the lethality agent makes themselves scarce, but they don't forget. As soon as that warrior gives up trying to impale him, the lethality agent sticks a toxic dart in his neck, severs the tendons in his leg with a well placed knife throw, blinds him with a flashbang, call in orbital support on his blinded foe, and then closes in for the kill. Lethality agents are very much team players, at their strongest when many friends and foes are on the field and they can move about with impunity and support their allies while hampering their enemies. The agent will debilitate a strong foe, kill a weak one, and support allies under attack by weakening those who are attacking them. Ultimately, the lethality agent is everywhere and nowhere, at the worst possible place at the worst possible time. You'll never see him while you think you're winning, only feel a slight tinge, or inhale some nasty fumes from a badly placed gas grenade. It is when you realize that the fumes are burning your lungs, that the joints on your armor won't move and your weapon is jammed that you'll notice the laser sight honed in on your forehead and realized that its far too late to do anything but die.

 

The current reality: Stinkbug

In the current build, the lethality op is annoying because of their poisons, but they need to get into melee range to actually harm you. If their team is already pushing yours back, then they may start culling you, but if the fight is even, there is no chance that they will be able to get away with closing into melee range. They are just going to sit back and spam poisons at everyone hoping some overzealous smasher will come into their ranks at half health. If focused, they can run away for a bit but lack the tools to actually fight back and if they survive the initial 2 stuns (which most of the time they won't) they will be forced to run away and self heal. (A healer won't be able to help since we can't be healed after restealthing). With the coming changes in 2.5 they will be fodder for any warrior out there since they will be easy to leap to and in the time it takes them to set up their cull train, the warrior would have force fed them their own intestines.

 

What were currently good at:

-Fluff damage, thats what dots are, they aren't going to kill anybody or even weaken them much unless there is no healer and we can keep them rolling for about a minute

-AOE: No complaints on my part. Frag nade+poisons+orbital+carbine burst is a solid aoe package

-Holding ground: being in cover behind the line is a huge advantage when setting up and looking for targets since were so squishy when in the melee. Were going to lose this in 2.5 though.

-Crowd control: instant 30m range aoe slow, roll, sprint on a 6s cooldown, flash nade, 30s hard stun. No complaints here.

-Burst: a tripple (or the legendary quadrupple) cull is a sight to behold. Too bad it takes 5 GCD's (3 of which must be in melee range) to set it up.

 

What were bad at:

-Group utility: We have none. In fact were a liability since our class depends on multi dotting and hence makes it impossible to CC for our allies. I suppose you could list our group stealth here, but the cooldown is long, the stealth level is low, and it rarely has any practical uses.

-Survivability: We have none. Shield probe absorbs 2-3k if you are specced for it and have 2 pieces of medic gear. Evasion only helps against marksman snipers and madness sorcs and has a really long cooldown considering. Between our medium armor, lack of any AOE reduction skills, and now our loss of cover we are going to be even squishier than sorcs (no OS bubble, or regular bubble, or instant self heal, or reliable cheap sprint).

-Spec Synergy: The spec is awkward and doesn't utilize most of the operatives tools. You can still use them, but they are not tied into the spec. We have a gun but have to get into melee to use it, our main weapon is a knife but we have to benefits to using it, we have stealth and heals but don't have bonuses to either or incentive to use them. (stealth is for initial setup only, heals are too expensive and cast intensive to use in combat).

-Range control: For a melee class, we have no real way to getting into and out of melee. Sneaking in to start a fight is suicide, by the time we are done setting up the aoe's flying around would have killed us. Exfiltrate costs a quarter of our available energy and two uses make it impossible to dps afterwards (not to mention that being slowed makes this useless as well). We used to be able to at least hold ranged positions with cover but now were losing that too.

 

Proposed changes: How to change the stinkbug into the toxic skirmisher

1) Give us full range: Cull, weakening blast, sever tendon and overload shot should be 30m by default.

2) Free us from cover OR synergize us with cover: Either let us use explosive probe and snipe when out of cover for all operatives, or give lethality a perk that gives us our leap immunity back while crouched.

3) Synergize the spec: To work as a ranged dot class/debuffer we will need to have the following changes made to our talents:

-Weaking blast now applies a 10s debuff called toxic goop and gives a TA. While affected by toxic goop, a target cannot use distance closing abilities and moves 50% slower. Furthermore, if an explosive probe is detonated on a gooped target, it will auto crit. (purgeable)

-While suffering from the debuffs from weakening blast, the agents poisons have a 50% chance to interrupt casts with each tick. (cleansable)

-The tier 1 talent that gives us our sprint needs to be applied to overload shot instead of shiv.

-Flash powder needs to debuff accuracy by 50%, and defense/shield chance by 100%. (Cleansable)

-Poison ticks have a 30% chance to generate a TA, cannot occur more than once every 6s.

-Explosive probe crits generate a TA.

-Cull must be channeled for 3s like the sniper but has no cooldown (uses a TA instead).

-In addition to providing a free heal, quickening should make that heal auto crit (its not that strong of a heal and we are very squishy).

-Activating countermeasures resets the cooldown on restealth, stim boost, shield probe, and adrenaline probe instead of breaking roots.

Edited October 30, 2013 by wishihadaname

[Alavarius]

I am going to back out of a few of my previous ideas based on the new "slow incremental change" policy.

 

Concealment DPS:

Backstab cooldown reduction...whether it is a mechanic/lacerate, a flat reduction, whatever..

 

Acid Blade - just annoying to have to reapply it all the time...make it a passive buff.

 

Flurry of Shots - give it an increased crit chance + energy regen on crit ... like diagnostic scan. Would solve our energy problems.

 

Concealment Defenses:

Cloaking Screen - make it cleanse or unbreakable via damage for 10 seconds.

 

30% damage reduction when stunned or immobilized (roots).

 

 

Done.

[RougeBeaver]

Countermeasures: Temporary stealth and AoE reduction in Concealment tree, make it happen.

 

Also Adrenaline Probe needs to stop breaking Stealth already. Seems more broken than anything.

[Racter]

I really like the idea of turning countermeasures into preparation but I doubt they'd do it. Would be tremendously good, and we aren't allowed to be tremendously good.

 

Turning countermeasures into feint would flat out not be good enough and the class would still not be close to good enough. AOE reduction really needs to be passive in this game. Once every 45s? (No idea what CD on countermeasures is, never use it) would reduce what 4 smashes tops? Still die almost instantly to cleave damage.

 

I've seen several people suggest giving us smoke bomb, which would help against ranged teams, but would be of no benefit against smash/ap comps. For those unfamiliar, smoke bomb prevents anyone in the cloud from being directly targeted. Untargeted/ground targeted AOE (smash ft force storm death field overload sweeping slash dfa orbital strike sweeping blasters etc) can still be used in the cloud. All damage taken is reduced by 20% in the cloud. Lasts 4s. I often use this to get a hard restealth on my rogue as it only takes 6s to drop combat. This would be impossible in swtor unless the ability also dropped combat on use and preventing dots from putting you back in combat for the duration (in wow they don't by default, only active attacks). This seems unlikely to be implemented.

 

Something like subterfuge would be greatly beneficial for concealment if the cool down on hidden strike was removed. Subterfuge gives you three seconds of stealth after being attacked/attacking. This would at least guarantee us an opener and at most give us a chance at serious burst every 90s. However, bioware cares about regs so we will never get this.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Racter

[chuixupu]

One small note: I never really liked Carbine Burst all that much. The two problems I have with it is the delay between hitting the button and it firing off. The other problem is that I feel like the AOE cone is too small in diameter and range (I have completely missed mobs many times that looked like they were right in front of me.

[Skarey]

( BTW.... FIX ROLL BUG, OMG!!! )

^ this

[wollegol]

If you want the operative to be a lone ranger and slippery but still boost survivability why don't you give us a talent that lowers cooldown on cloakingscreen from 1.5 minutes to 1 minute, maybe make it the new 4 set bonus?.

 

The operative still needs some boost in survivability out of stealth, for example a damage reduction cooldown 25% for 10 secs and a instant 7-10k heal. In meele range we cant start casting our 2.5 sec heal, its impossible. We cant roll away and do it either, we will run out of energy.

 

Give us a meaningfull filler on top of these changes and the trees are viable again. It can be overload shot but you must lower the energy cost also, it drains more energy then both shiv and lacerate, not a good "filler".

[VonFoxFire]

Well I think the biggest problem is a lot of the heavy armoured classes can do equal or more dps than the actual light/medium classes while having no mobility problems. Such as Jedi knights/sith warriors flying half way across the screen or troopers/bounty hunters with their ranged attacks , leaving the squishy classes very little room to maneuver. This really hurts the operative because pretty much for all intents and purposes it has a poor mans rage system in place which requires a player to go toe to toe with tanks to use most of their abilities.

That said I wouldn't suggest going back to the builds of super stealth and instant dps death that really ruined the game for everyone else.

I would though suggest for lethality that tactical Advantage be earned from ranged attacks not close combat abilities. While concealment be given a self armor buff that puts them on par with tanks because that's basically what's being asked of a concealment operative to go in close and tank.

Edited October 31, 2013 by VonFoxFire

[Vaeranus]

I have to say, I am really impressed with J-cart and Vorna's posts (both are lengthy so I'm not going to copy them). Particularly the part about the debuff... that would make the class a must in both PvE and PvP. If you start with theirs as a good jumping off part, the class would be in good shape. (PS -J-cart literally wrote the abilities, hire him please!)

 

For Lethality, making the TA's generate similar to how they do in the Medicine tree with the probes would be a big improvement (ie 10%/20%30% chance to grant TA for each tick of a DoT) would be a big win for that tree, as it is their more ranged tree and it makes no sense for all the TA's to grant from melee abilities.

 

For Concealment, I think you need to make Hidden Strike auto-crit with Acid Blades up. This is only available to this tree, and gives them the extra bit of burst they are looking for without making Lethality OP. I like some of the other ideas about Hidden Strike being used out of stealth when talented (knockdown only usable when in stealth). Either need to do this, or drop the CD's on Shiv/Backstab to incorporate this.

 

Overload shot... still not going to use it with the new tweak. It is an energy hog, and the only time i use it is to finish someone rq off when the are trying to kite.

 

Explosive Probe... with the cover mechanic being shot for the Operative, make it so that there is a talent in the first tier to use this out of Cover. What you're going to do with Snipe, don't know but kind of useless for this AC.

 

Defensive CD's - I like some of the ideas bounced around on other posts. If we're going to be paying a Stealth tax, at least make the CD shorter to make it more of benefit.