Operative DPS Brainstorming

[Jintel]

SO, I am probably repeating suggestions from an earlier post but here's my thoughts....

1. Remove the energy cosy of acid blade - this will help with energy regen - and increase it's armour pen debuff to bring our damage into line with other classes.

2. Reduce the CD of backstab to 9 seconds - a 12 sec CD is just ridiculous and unnecessary - the ability may be our second biggest hitter but barely competes with other classes main abilities if it crits and has a longer CD.

3. Either make hidden strike an auto crit OR increase it's damage as having a once per fight ability that hits someone for 3k (non crit) is just a joke.

4. Survivability wise we either need an AoE DR talent, increase the amount shield probe absorbs by ALOT or make activating sneak reduce damage similar to blackout. IF none of these seem reasonable then maybe give us a way to actually use exhilarate effectively without energy starving us.

 

I know a lot of these suggestions are just reverting to pre 1.3 changes but IMO cocealment wasn't OP at this point, the relics and 4sec stun on HS was....

[Luckeyduckey]

Buff overall survivability (Steal talents from Medic and make them passives) nerf healing a bit ( to make up for the survivability that they get to keep), and buff Concealment damage back to 1.0 (Hidden Strike should be hitting for 8-10k easy, Backstab should be hitting 7-9k easy). What this does:

 

Lethality keeps their high damage, high burst, and have stronger survivability to offset their ramp up

Healing is still hard to kill, but less so

Concealment is more on par with other specs, keeping all their damage the same but buffing their burst abilities, allowing them to demolish someone on par of what a sin can open with, and keeping their mediocre sustained, with stronger survivability to build up that burst again. So, I suggest:

 

6 Second Backstab, 50% armor pen on Acid Blade, 75% damage increase to Backstab and Hidden Strike (In Concealment or Passive, preferably the former though), increase the amount shield probe's HP has (Make it more like 6-8k absorbed, with the current CD it has), and finally change Ghost to make Hidden Strike usable without knockdown and Acid Blade. HOWEVER, do not reset the CD with Ghost, only allow it to be usable. If it resets the CD, we'll see a quad Hidden Strike with:

Stealth

Acid Blade

Hidden Strike

Ghost

Hidden Strike

Backstab + Acid Blade

Explosive Probe

Lacerate x2

Backstab

Adrenaline Probe

Stealth out

Hidden Strike + Acid Blade

Ghost

Hidden Strike

Backstab

Lacerate x2.

 

That would be too much and you haven't even used Shiv yet..

Edited November 4, 2013 by Luckeyduckey

[Racter]

Buff overall survivability (Steal talents from Medic and make them passives) nerf healing a bit ( to make up for the survivability that they get to keep), and buff Concealment damage back to 1.0 (Hidden Strike should be hitting for 8-10k easy, Backstab should be hitting 7-9k easy). What this does:

 

Lethality keeps their high damage, high burst, and have stronger survivability to offset their ramp up

Healing is still hard to kill, but less so

Concealment is more on par with other specs, keeping all their damage the same but buffing their burst abilities, allowing them to demolish someone on par of what a sin can open with, and keeping their mediocre sustained, with stronger survivability to build up that burst again. So, I suggest:

 

6 Second Backstab, 50% armor pen on Acid Blade, 75% damage increase to Backstab and Hidden Strike (In Concealment or Passive, preferably the former though), increase the amount shield probe's HP has (Make it more like 6-8k absorbed, with the current CD it has), and finally change Ghost to make Hidden Strike usable without knockdown and Acid Blade. HOWEVER, do not reset the CD with Ghost, only allow it to be usable. If it resets the CD, we'll see a quad Hidden Strike with:

Stealth

Acid Blade

Hidden Strike

Ghost

Hidden Strike

Backstab + Acid Blade

Explosive Probe

Lacerate x2

Backstab

Adrenaline Probe

Stealth out

Hidden Strike + Acid Blade

Ghost

Hidden Strike

Backstab

Lacerate x2.

 

That would be too much and you haven't even used Shiv yet..

 

That would also be impossible, you ran out of energy before you made it to lacerate. 75% increase to HS and Backstab lolwat that would put my average crits in the high 14 low 15k range. We would definitely never get that let alone every 6/7.5s. I mean it'd be nice to go back to the broken times when hidden strike hit twice but I really don't think bioware wants good concealment operatives selling wins for arenas because the can 4v1 an entire team in 15-20s rofl

 

I would like to see HS and Backstab crits hitting in the 10-11k range in full Obroan if they keep the cooldowns as they are, similar to every other burst spec's big hitters. With no buff to defensives 14-15k Hidden Strike crits might be somewhat reasonable, leave backstab crits 7-8k as they are now. However, that would lead to us pretty much globaling people in regs and would leave us relying entirely on our openers in arena which isn't a fun play style to face. I would rather see them add a flat 1.5-2k to the base damage to bring both abilities in line with maul's damage (5-6k non crit, 9-10k+ crits). Could deal with the current energy system and ****** gap closer with no problem. Would still really, really desire 30% AOE DR and an on demand damage reduction talent.

 

Adding 2k base damage to those two abilities without making any other changes to our damage or cooldowns would bump the top concealment parse up from 3126 to 3285. Still a mile behind the top DPS specs, but on par with operative lethality. It would also solve those no crit string woes, as a non crit opener post buff would do as much damage as a crappy crit opener does now.

 

Might be enough to get us in arenas. I'm fairly confident a well played double madness or double AP mara comp would still decimate us without additional damage reduction. Having kolto infusion be instant cast and energy free, but still require a tactical advantage baseline with a cast time and cost for medicine would go a long way towards helping our passive survivability, something like that in combination with a damage boost like this would probably be good enough to make us viable. Would bring back and improve greatly upon the old revitalizers talent and bring our self healing ability in combat on par with sorcs (total amount healed would be about the same as the amount absorbed by bubbles and unnatural preservation combined, used on cooldown, though we would face a small damage loss for this) and mercs. We have pretty good crowd control abilities, the heal change would give us more acceptable survivability and the small increase to base damage on hidden strike and backstab would give us burst on par with other burst classes and increase our sustained a reasonable amount as well.

 

TL;DR

 

Make Kolto Infusion instant cast and energy free baseline. Keep the TA requirement. In the Surgical Probe talent, add a 25 energy cost and 1.5s cast time to Kolto Infusion. Boom! Revitalizers 2.0, for both dps trees. Would be excellent if we could use this ability in stealth like the old revitalizers talent. Self healing can now be part of our survivability without copying mechanics from another class.

 

Increase the base damage of Hidden Strike and Backstab (concealment only) by 1.5-2k damage. This puts them in line with other burst classes hard hitting abilities, makes us less reliant on a crit opener and is perfectly even with duplicity mauls. Because backstab retains it's 12s CD, it is not comparable to a regular maul. I think because of it's cooldown (and hidden strike's stealth requirement) it should only be compared to buffed mauls. This change would bring it directly in line with the current buffed maul system for concealment only, both boosting our PVE DPS and making our burst damage both better and more reliable without it being ******* crazy like it was at launch.

 

Thoughts?

Edited November 5, 2013 by Racter

[Arcadius-Fett]

I'm very happy to see that the Combat Team is planning to improve this class, although I am saddened by the fact that it will probably be half a year or more until we see any of these changes (hopefully) implemented.

 

Concealment faces a huge problem in that we are very bursty and have pretty bad sustained DPS, we are at our best immediately when exiting stealth to start a fight. Unfortunately, about 95% of the time it goes Hidden Strike > stunned. With all the stun locking, roots, and knockbacks in this game our DPS takes a huge hit. Concealment Operatives would greatly benefit from a skill that procs a CC immunity after initiating a fight from stealth with Hidden Strike, similar to a Vengeance Jugg's Unstoppable after leaping.

 

For Concealment:

-Jarring Strike now additionally grants immunity to stuns, knockbacks, and roots for 4 seconds when you successfully knock your enemy down (using this on enemies with full resolve would not grant this effect)

-Decrease Backstab cooldown

-Decrease Hidden Strike cooldown

-Ghost now additionally allows the use of Hidden Strike outside of stealth without the knockdown effect (thus also not granting CC immunity)

-Meticulously Kept Blades now increases critical damage done by Shiv instead of Sever Tendon

-Rework Revitalizers into some sort of defensive proc

-Tactical Opportunity cannot occur more than once every 5 seconds (down from 10)

 

 

I feel that these changes would allow Concealment Operatives to have a much needed minor buff, as it stands, we are simply burst damage that can't hit hard enough. Our cooldowns are too long and our critical hit chance too low to continue the way we are now. The Unstoppable-like skill would stop everyone from immediately cutting our DPS short in every single fight the way they do now.

 

Bioware says we are meant to be a slippery class, and I'd like it to stay that way, we need to be able to pop out of stealth and quickly take our targets down so that we may then sneak away and prepare for the next fight. Right now we just pop out of stealth, barely do damage and then run around not being able to use one of our best abilities.

[wollegol]

It would be nice to know if any changes are slated for 2.5 or if we going to have to wait at least 3 months for any changes? Maybe you can share some light on this Eric?

[clubdeeko]

It would be nice to know if any changes are slated for 2.5 or if we going to have to wait at least 3 months for any changes? Maybe you can share some light on this Eric?

 

Very good question. I would be interested to hear an answer on this.

[Jintel]

Very good question. I would be interested to hear an answer on this.

 

I think EVERYONE would like to know this! Be warned though, I think if we have to wait 3 months after the planned 2.5 nerf for any changes then there will be no operative DPS left.....

[GEWill]

I would start off with the following changes. The changes I am going to mention are minor and would not break the Concealment or make it overpowered.

 

I would make Shiv have 0 energy cost or at least cut the energy cost by 50% down to 7 energy from 15.

 

I would make Acid Blade cost 10 energy rather than 15.

 

Stim Boost should have a base cooldown of 1:30 rather than 2:00 based on its rather low performance based on a 2 minute timer.

 

Hidden Strike needs to be tiered or at least have a branch in the tree that gives it effects such as using while not in stealth or behind the target. Also backstab should get a secondary effect which is not based on position. Making it useable at 50% damage if not behind the target and normal damage if behind the target would be good. Same with Hidden Strike. You could make it perform at 50% its present output with 0 energy cost unless behind the target and in stealth. I've never understood having an energy cost to pull out a blade and knife someone. The costs are just too high on some of the abilities. I like that Backstab can be used at 0 cost due to the proc in the tree, but other blade attacks need those options also.

 

Sever Tendon needs to be removed from the game completely and replaced with one of the aforementioned tree changes I mentioned above.

 

In terms of sustained damage Laceration should have a 100% chance to trigger a Collateral Strike rather than 70%. That little change would boost sustained damage greatly.

 

To the person that said Operative survivability is heavily dependent on Exfiltrate I have to disagree completely. Operative survivability is actually very good where its at because of all the tools the class has at its disposal and that was even before Exfiltrate was added.

 

I think these minor alterations would make the Operative Concealment tree excellent because right now its still beastly and if played right doesn't need a change, but there are so many BAD Operatives on this game that it shames me when I see people playing them.

[Racter]

I would start off with the following changes. The changes I am going to mention are minor and would not break the Concealment or make it overpowered.

 

I would make Shiv have 0 energy cost or at least cut the energy cost by 50% down to 7 energy from 15.

 

I would make Acid Blade cost 10 energy rather than 15.

 

Stim Boost should have a base cooldown of 1:30 rather than 2:00 based on its rather low performance based on a 2 minute timer.

 

Hidden Strike needs to be tiered or at least have a branch in the tree that gives it effects such as using while not in stealth or behind the target. Also backstab should get a secondary effect which is not based on position. Making it useable at 50% damage if not behind the target and normal damage if behind the target would be good. Same with Hidden Strike. You could make it perform at 50% its present output with 0 energy cost unless behind the target and in stealth. I've never understood having an energy cost to pull out a blade and knife someone. The costs are just too high on some of the abilities. I like that Backstab can be used at 0 cost due to the proc in the tree, but other blade attacks need those options also.

 

Sever Tendon needs to be removed from the game completely and replaced with one of the aforementioned tree changes I mentioned above.

 

In terms of sustained damage Laceration should have a 100% chance to trigger a Collateral Strike rather than 70%. That little change would boost sustained damage greatly.

 

To the person that said Operative survivability is heavily dependent on Exfiltrate I have to disagree completely. Operative survivability is actually very good where its at because of all the tools the class has at its disposal and that was even before Exfiltrate was added.

 

I think these minor alterations would make the Operative Concealment tree excellent because right now its still beastly and if played right doesn't need a change, but there are so many BAD Operatives on this game that it shames me when I see people playing them.

 

Do you even play a Concealment operative? I'm sorry, but beyond the energy reduction and stim boost, this whole post was nonsense. Remove our 2s root? No chance in hell. Would severely nerf our up time and survivability. Hidden Strike and backstab doing reduced damage? No chance in hell. With as buggy as this game is there is no way making a positional ability do less damage from anywhere and more damage behind a target is a good idea. Laceration proccing collateral strikes 100% also not only makes zero sense, but collateral strikes damage would be nerfed as a result. You're basically saying you want to remove collateral strike and increase the damage of Lacerate by 800-1000. Our survivability is far and away the worst in the game at the moment and I'm blown away that you could possibly think otherwise. Not even going to address this part.

 

Giving us CC immunity is also a bad idea. I'm 100% sure we would get nerfed again, and it would add nothing to our survivability. Stop keyboard turning and stay behind people. There's your CC immunity. Anything more than that would make us too strong. Concealment is about sharp burst damage during our short periods of up time. Increasing our up time through this method would be detrimental to every ranged DPS class in the game and is not something I can support in any way. Removing the energy cost from roll, allow it to ignore snares and always go 12m, and putting it on a 10s CD is a much more balanced and beneficial way to go about increasing our up time.

 

This is more regstar nonsense guys. If you aren't interested in making concealment viable in high end content (PVE and PVP) please don't bother filling this thread up with nonsense. We're not getting 1.0 back. It's time to move forward from that.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Racter

[GEWill]

Right now we just pop out of stealth, barely do damage and then run around not being able to use one of our best abilities.

 

I don't agree with this part of your statement at all. It couldn't be further from the truth. In my experience you have to be a pretty terrible Operative to not be useful in an Operation as Concealment. The problem is that most Concealment Operatives don't A)know the proper rotation and B)don't know how to manage energy to stay effective.

 

As with any spec and even more so with Concealment, rotation is key to get the most out of the tree. With Arsenal, Pyrotech, Annihilation, Carnage, or even Lightning/Madness Sorcerors, you can miss an attack in your rotation and use another attack to keep the damage up, but with Concealment if you miss-hit an attack in your rotationis can drop you from 3000/sec to 1800/sec.

 

Do I think Concealment needs some changes? Yes. Do I think the tree is useless at the moment or under performing? No. I think the problem is with the usebase and people not learning their tree because most people have started making Operatives as their alts and haven't invested the time to get the character down to be the best it can be.

[Jintel]

I would start off with the following changes. The changes I am going to mention are minor and would not break the Concealment or make it overpowered.

 

I would make Shiv have 0 energy cost or at least cut the energy cost by 50% down to 7 energy from 15.

 

I would make Acid Blade cost 10 energy rather than 15.

 

Stim Boost should have a base cooldown of 1:30 rather than 2:00 based on its rather low performance based on a 2 minute timer.

 

Hidden Strike needs to be tiered or at least have a branch in the tree that gives it effects such as using while not in stealth or behind the target. Also backstab should get a secondary effect which is not based on position. Making it useable at 50% damage if not behind the target and normal damage if behind the target would be good. Same with Hidden Strike. You could make it perform at 50% its present output with 0 energy cost unless behind the target and in stealth. I've never understood having an energy cost to pull out a blade and knife someone. The costs are just too high on some of the abilities. I like that Backstab can be used at 0 cost due to the proc in the tree, but other blade attacks need those options also.

 

Sever Tendon needs to be removed from the game completely and replaced with one of the aforementioned tree changes I mentioned above.

 

In terms of sustained damage Laceration should have a 100% chance to trigger a Collateral Strike rather than 70%. That little change would boost sustained damage greatly.

 

To the person that said Operative survivability is heavily dependent on Exfiltrate I have to disagree completely. Operative survivability is actually very good where its at because of all the tools the class has at its disposal and that was even before Exfiltrate was added.

 

I think these minor alterations would make the Operative Concealment tree excellent because right now its still beastly and if played right doesn't need a change, but there are so many BAD Operatives on this game that it shames me when I see people playing them.

 

Sorry but this is plain silly. Concealment survivability is horrid, you obviously havent played ranked arenas against FoTM setups such as double smash mara's and hybrid PTs. If you can tell me in what sense we have excellent survivability i will be very impressed.....our shield probe absorbs ~4k...you cant self heal in ranked....we get knocked out of cloaking screen by stealth scan or smash or flamethrower.....and dodge doesnt avoid tech or force damage so in what sense is our survivability very good?

 

Also, whilst im out it, please define "beastly"....We cant compete in sustained PvP DPS, our burst DPS is now inferior to nearly every other class if we dont get lucky crits, and we can be taken from 100-0% in a stunlock if we have no cloaking screen and CC breaker....so again, please elaborate before you going throwing this ridiculous claims around.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Jintel

[GEWill]

Do you even play a Concealment operative? I'm sorry, but beyond the energy reduction and stim boost, this whole post was nonsense. Remove our 2s root? No chance in hell. Would severely nerf our up time and survivability. Hidden Strike and backstab doing reduced damage? No chance in hell. With as buggy as this game is there is no way making a positional ability do less damage from anywhere and more damage behind a target is a good idea. Laceration proccing collateral strikes 100% also not only makes zero sense, but collateral strikes damage would be nerfed as a result. You're basically saying you want to remove collateral strike and increase the damage of Lacerate by 800-1000. Our survivability is far and away the worst in the game at the moment and I'm blown away that you could possibly think otherwise. Not even going to address this part.

 

Giving us CC immunity is also a bad idea. I'm 100% sure we would get nerfed again, and it would add nothing to our survivability. Stop keyboard turning and stay behind people. There's your CC immunity. Anything more than that would make us too strong. Concealment is about sharp burst damage during our short periods of up time. Increasing our up time through this method would be detrimental to every ranged DPS class in the game and is not something I can support in any way. Removing the energy cost from roll, allow it to ignore snares and always go 12m, and putting it on a 10s CD is a much more balanced and beneficial way to go about increasing our up time.

 

This is more regstar nonsense guys. If you aren't interested in making concealment viable in high end content (PVE and PVP) please don't bother filling this thread up with nonsense. We're not getting 1.0 back. It's time to move forward from that.

 

It's obvious you didn't understand my post otherwise you wouldn't have quoted me. My changes are in addition to what we already do. When I change skills such as Hidden Strike to do 50% damage mechanic applies to when not in stealth mode. Hidden Strike is based on being stealthed and behind the enemy, and one complaint is that its not useable enough. My idea makes it useable at all times while not stealthed thus adding an attack to our rotation with 50% of its base damage. When stealthed and behind the enemy then it would function like normal. Same idea applies to Backstab which is positional.

 

Your argument of the game being buggy and not being able to redo a positional attack is irrelevant because Assassin's being able to use Maul while facing the enemy works perfectly fine. Having laceration proc 100% v 70% would not nerf CS damage because the damage of CS is already not the best, the added chance to have TA returned is the reason for the higher proc %. People want more sustained damage and adding fully useable attacks with Backstab and Hidden Strike while out of stealth would increase damage output for burst and for sustained while also not overpowered the tree at all. Right now Backstab and HS in their current forms are awesome abilities, but giving us out of stealth use for them at 50% their base damage would be a hell of a lot better than making massive changes to the Operative in hopes of balalncing the class.

[GEWill]

Sorry but this is plain silly. Concealment survivability is horrid, you obviously havent played ranked arenas against FoTM setups such as double smash mara's and hybrid PTs. If you can tell me in what sense we have excellent survivability i will be very impressed.....our shield probe absorbs ~4k...you cant self heal in ranked....we get knocked out of cloaking screen by stealth scan or smash or flamethrower.....and dodge doesnt avoid tech or force damage so in what sense is our survivability very good?

 

Also, whilst im out it, please define "beastly"....We cant compete in sustained PvP DPS, our burst DPS is now inferior to nearly every other class if we dont get lucky crits, and we can be taken from 100-0% in a stunlock if we have no cloaking screen and CC breaker....so again, please elaborate before you going throwing this ridiculous claims around.

 

Nothing in my post is about PVP because I couldn't care less about PVP. My changes are in relation to PVE for Operations. When talking about PVP I would say something about PVP, but since I haven't PVP'd on my OP since Novare was introduced I don't chime in on PVP related matters. I only care about the Operative and its performance in the PVE end of things.

Edited November 5, 2013 by GEWill

[Jintel]

Maybe you should state this then instead of making sweeping statements regarding our DPS and Survivability that effect all aspects ofconcealment game play and not just PVE.

[GEWill]

Or maybe you all should calm the **** down and maybe ask if I am talking about PVE or PVP before trying lambast someone's ideas.

 

I am never a fan of a game developer balancing a character-type for PVP and PVE it doesn't work. I would rather they keep them completely separate so that one doesn't impact the other, but that will never happen on TOR.

Edited November 5, 2013 by GEWill

[chuixupu]

It would be nice to know if any changes are slated for 2.5 or if we going to have to wait at least 3 months for any changes? Maybe you can share some light on this Eric?

 

If you read this post:

 

If you look at what threads there are and what is written in each thread, there are some Classes and specs which are missing. That is intentional for the time being. I mainly wanted to highlight specifically those who received no changes in 2.5.

 

-eric

 

I would take that to mean changes for 2.5 are set in stone now and these questions are for classes who did not receive them in 2.5 and will receive them in an update after 2.5.

Edited November 5, 2013 by chuixupu

[alienwareguy]

1-Move evasive Evasive Imperative into concealment, from medicine.

2-Give concealment the same shield probe from lethality tree.

3-Make damaging attacks grant 35% chance to trigger an out of stealth hidden strike. But only allow this to happen, only so often per minuet. Like every 35 seconds or so.

 

-Ive been playing concealment for since the game released as a main.. My characters name is Auroraborealis, and i am on PoT5 server. You may have been killed by me before lol.. I will say one thing. I honestly feel concealment damage is borderline OP in 1v1. I have no problems killing smashers, and in many instances deceptions assassins. People need to realize any buffs to concealment will quickly make this already extremely potent spec become flavor of the month like assassin, and no one will want teams of concealment operatives running around landing 2 hidden strikes per target, because even in the current state, its nearly overkill. This spec is amazing in my opinion, and i am extremely successful with it, and have hit 1 mill damage on several occasions with concealment. Already with the new gear from 2.4 hitting for 8.5k with hidden strike is not a rare occurrence at all. Plus factor in the bleed, and its a massive chuck of damage. We have roots, and extreme control over targets, not to mention the best stuns in game. Yes it is squishy, but GOD it is capable of WAY more than most people are assuming. A slight buff to its survivability will be sufficient enough, and perhaps a chance to proc a out of stealth hidden strike. Im even supportive of removable of energy cost of acid blade. However comparing this class to assassin is not a good way to go about things. We have way more ranged options, and the ability to use a very strong AoE (orbital strike), as well as corrosive dart, which is a very underestimated skill of concealment operatives, and i don't see many of them use it enough. Once this class is mastered its the most lethal killing machine in the game, with only deception being able to pose a real threat. I just don't want to see this class become brain dead like Deception, where you can play it with a blind fold on, just by mashing some auto crit BS. Please leave concealment for peoples that are willing to take time to learn this class, and not make it some overly simple Flavor of the month god mode spec.

[Arstechnica]

TA if not used fades too fast, needs to stay up longer or indefinitely.

[Griad]

For lethality another way to proc TA would be nice, but i would prefer a lower cd between the ability to get the free cull.

 

For concealment a just give us option to use hidden strike out of stealth without the knockdown

[Racter]

1-Move evasive Evasive Imperative into concealment, from medicine.

2-Give concealment the same shield probe from lethality tree.

3-Make damaging attacks grant 35% chance to trigger an out of stealth hidden strike. But only allow this to happen, only so often per minuet. Like every 35 seconds or so.

 

-Ive been playing concealment for since the game released as a main.. My characters name is Auroraborealis, and i am on PoT5 server. You may have been killed by me before lol.. I will say one thing. I honestly feel concealment damage is borderline OP in 1v1. I have no problems killing smashers, and in many instances deceptions assassins. People need to realize any buffs to concealment will quickly make this already extremely potent spec become flavor of the month like assassin, and no one will want teams of concealment operatives running around landing 2 hidden strikes per target, because even in the current state, its nearly overkill. This spec is amazing in my opinion, and i am extremely successful with it, and have hit 1 mill damage on several occasions with concealment. Already with the new gear from 2.4 hitting for 8.5k with hidden strike is not a rare occurrence at all. Plus factor in the bleed, and its a massive chuck of damage. We have roots, and extreme control over targets, not to mention the best stuns in game. Yes it is squishy, but GOD it is capable of WAY more than most people are assuming. A slight buff to its survivability will be sufficient enough, and perhaps a chance to proc a out of stealth hidden strike. Im even supportive of removable of energy cost of acid blade. However comparing this class to assassin is not a good way to go about things. We have way more ranged options, and the ability to use a very strong AoE (orbital strike), as well as corrosive dart, which is a very underestimated skill of concealment operatives, and i don't see many of them use it enough. Once this class is mastered its the most lethal killing machine in the game, with only deception being able to pose a real threat. I just don't want to see this class become brain dead like Deception, where you can play it with a blind fold on, just by mashing some auto crit BS. Please leave concealment for peoples that are willing to take time to learn this class, and not make it some overly simple Flavor of the month god mode spec.

 

I play for several hours a day on Pot5 and have for months. Never seen or heard of you. Also now do arenas for 6 hours a night. You know how many concealment operatives do arenas? None. Do you know why? Because this class is incapable of doing anything resembling competing. Please stop with this regstar nonsense so we can MAYBE have a SHOT at this class being arena viable before the last 100 or so good players worldwide move on.

 

I ran concealment tonight with another conc op from Pot5. We are hands down the best two remaining conc ops on the server. Both of us have no problem doing 1mil+ damage and 1k+ DPS in regs. We ran with the probably the best Jugg tank that still plays and a top tier op healer. We got **** on by random nobodies because the classes survivability is literally so bad that 1 mouthbreather tunnel visioning garbage dps any random tank and any random op healer can burn either of us down in seconds WHILE TAUNTED, THROUGH GUARD, WITH HEALS. The one actually good team we played tonight cockblocked both our openers every round from random AOE damage and blew us up with random cleave damage. Directly after that game the other op left and we swapped the operatives out for marauders (our normal team). We lost two rounds out of probably 15 games, all them against the same teams that had just dunked on our operatives. Did the player skill change? No. Did our coordination change? No. Gear gap? Nope. Even if we had evasion up ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME and they TRIPLED what shield probe absorbs and put it on a 15s cooldown we would still be too squishy to play the game.

 

Operative burst is too low, our sustained pressure is OKish when we can stay on a target that isn't guarded (protip, good luck with this considering every team can cleanse our snare, has far greater mobility than us and an equal or greater snare of their own that they can load us up with), but the main problem is our survivability is literally so bad that our DPS trees will never see any rated representation on a server with competitive pvp. This is really not an arguable issue so please stop wasting everyone's time disagreeing with it. No one, and I literally mean not one single person, gives half a **** if you think you're good at the spec 1v1 or in regular warzones. That does zero, zilch, nada to make the class viable in competitive end game content.

 

Even if we did 1.0 damage the spec would still be too ****** to use in arena. Let that sink in for a minute until you realize what I'm saying. The spec could LITERALLY 3 shot people and it would still not be taken with it's current survivability. Not only can it not do that, it's not even in the same city as that ballpark. Don't believe me? Get on your operative and form a team and run rateds during prime time tomorrow. I will be happy to crush your group as many times as it takes for you to stop trying to white knight an irrelevant gnat of a spec.

[wollegol]

I play for several hours a day on Pot5 and have for months. Never seen or heard of you. Also now do arenas for 6 hours a night. You know how many concealment operatives do arenas? None. Do you know why? Because this class is incapable of doing anything resembling competing. Please stop with this regstar nonsense so we can MAYBE have a SHOT at this class being arena viable before the last 100 or so good players worldwide move on.

 

I ran concealment tonight with another conc op from Pot5. We are hands down the best two remaining conc ops on the server. Both of us have no problem doing 1mil+ damage and 1k+ DPS in regs. We ran with the probably the best Jugg tank that still plays and a top tier op healer. We got **** on by random nobodies because the classes survivability is literally so bad that 1 mouthbreather tunnel visioning garbage dps any random tank and any random op healer can burn either of us down in seconds WHILE TAUNTED, THROUGH GUARD, WITH HEALS. The one actually good team we played tonight cockblocked both our openers every round from random AOE damage and blew us up with random cleave damage. Directly after that game the other op left and we swapped the operatives out for marauders (our normal team). We lost two rounds out of probably 15 games, all them against the same teams that had just dunked on our operatives. Did the player skill change? No. Did our coordination change? No. Gear gap? Nope. Even if we had evasion up ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME and they TRIPLED what shield probe absorbs and put it on a 15s cooldown we would still be too squishy to play the game.

 

Operative burst is too low, our sustained pressure is OKish when we can stay on a target that isn't guarded (protip, good luck with this considering every team can cleanse our snare, has far greater mobility than us and an equal or greater snare of their own that they can load us up with), but the main problem is our survivability is literally so bad that our DPS trees will never see any rated representation on a server with competitive pvp. This is really not an arguable issue so please stop wasting everyone's time disagreeing with it. No one, and I literally mean not one single person, gives half a **** if you think you're good at the spec 1v1 or in regular warzones. That does zero, zilch, nada to make the class viable in competitive end game content.

 

Even if we did 1.0 damage the spec would still be too ****** to use in arena. Let that sink in for a minute until you realize what I'm saying. The spec could LITERALLY 3 shot people and it would still not be taken with it's current survivability. Not only can it not do that, it's not even in the same city as that ballpark. Don't believe me? Get on your operative and form a team and run rateds during prime time tomorrow. I will be happy to crush your group as many times as it takes for you to stop trying to white knight an irrelevant gnat of a spec.

 

FInally someone who knows what he´s talking about, its about making the spec viable for competitive rated arenas. You cant base a spec upon regular wz and dueling. But hopefully bioware must see in their metrics that in rated premades operative dps is very lackluster. I guess they already have since in their answers to our top three questions they thought op dps where in a good place and suddenly they changed their minds and said that we "need some love".

[Morde_]

Operative burst is too low, our sustained pressure is OKish when we can stay on a target that isn't guarded (protip, good luck with this considering every team can cleanse our snare, has far greater mobility than us and an equal or greater snare of their own that they can load us up with), but the main problem is our survivability is literally so bad that our DPS trees will never see any rated representation on a server with competitive pvp. This is really not an arguable issue so please stop wasting everyone's time disagreeing with it. No one, and I literally mean not one single person, gives half a **** if you think you're good at the spec 1v1 or in regular warzones. That does zero, zilch, nada to make the class viable in competitive end game content.

 

Even if we did 1.0 damage the spec would still be too ****** to use in arena. Let that sink in for a minute until you realize what I'm saying. The spec could LITERALLY 3 shot people and it would still not be taken with it's current survivability. Not only can it not do that, it's not even in the same city as that ballpark. Don't believe me? Get on your operative and form a team and run rateds during prime time tomorrow. I will be happy to crush your group as many times as it takes for you to stop trying to white knight an irrelevant gnat of a spec.

 

This is 100% correct.

 

Nobody is arguing about concealment's ability in regular warzones. Against bad players in spread out, situational combat, anything can look OP in half decent hands. If you're a regstar who thinks the burst is OP because you can 4 hit a sage with 1600 expertise, then you need to readjust your thought process.

 

As I said before, buffing concealment burst is not the solution to the problem. It would lead to more crying from bad players about being globalled, and dps operatives would still be virtually gone for rated arenas. Survivability needs to be addressed.

[Racter]

This is 100% correct.

 

Nobody is arguing about concealment's ability in regular warzones. Against bad players in spread out, situational combat, anything can look OP in half decent hands. If you're a regstar who thinks the burst is OP because you can 4 hit a sage with 1600 expertise, then you need to readjust your thought process.

 

As I said before, buffing concealment burst is not the solution to the problem. It would lead to more crying from bad players about being globalled, and dps operatives would still be virtually gone for rated arenas. Survivability needs to be addressed.

 

They are still going to have to address our damage and mobility. We have the lowest up time of all melee, especially in arena. Even if our damage was on par (and its not terribly far off, increasing the base damage of hs and back stab would be enough) and our survivability wasn't literally the worst in the game we still can't stay on targets or switch targets with any expediencey because we don't have a gap closer. Our snare also costs too much IMO.

 

Our hard hitters need to be brought in line with other burst specs. I would vastly prefer our roll to have a 10s CD and always go 12-15 meters to bring our mobility in line with sins. We need our passive damage reduction in the 35-40% range or 27-30% with AOE DR and a real defensive cool down. It is pretty much impossible to avoid eating a double death field, random smashes, a hard stun into a double flamethrower smash train. We can't live through that without guard and burst heals. We can BARELY live through that with those. At any point when our healer or other Dps is guarded we can get instagibbed in a single spike. Unlike literally every other DPS spec in the game, we have absolutely no tools to deal with this. Shield probe absorbs nothing. Evasion is totally useless. Giving us evasive imperative won't really help us because the vast majority of burst in this game is force or tech damage. My passive healing idea would help but it won't be enough. Both of those things combined, and maybe lowering the CD on shield probe to 15s.

 

Combined these changes might be enough. ~5k absorbed every 15s and a hot we can trade a ta for like pre 2.0. No major mechanic changes, no copying other classes abilities, no major work for Bioware. No out of stealth hidden strike, no autocrits, small buff in base damage to two abilities in a talent that already exist. Throw a CD on roll and make it ignore snares and free.

 

A few simple changes that would bring our DPS specs closer to balanced with the other melee specs in high end content.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Racter

[Mega_Fallos]

I stoped play my oper, scoundrel. I play my sage telekinetics only now. Patch 2.5 is my last hope that my sage and operative, scoundrel will be buffed. Else "unistall" this endless "smash/maul carnaval".

[eartharioch]

As I said before, buffing concealment burst is not the solution to the problem. It would lead to more crying from bad players about being globalled, and dps operatives would still be virtually gone for rated arenas. Survivability needs to be addressed.

 

And BW's answer is: buff Overload Shot, nerf Cover.