3 Questions for PT. Lets DO IT!

[Kooziejr]

Decent answers. Seem fair. Like the reasoning.

 

Inversely proportional? I think not - who said it was statistically significant? My bet would be that that is a trend and not significantly valid regarding the tanks. Stats 101.

 

Re: Tanks in PvP. Attach some burst damage and armour to the top of the tree. Don't make it useless garbage and nerf all hybrids (e.g., low slash cannot be used in tank stance, 15% damage reduction from jugg cooldown not active in tank stance). Simple solutions, Nerf hybrids and buff the full builds....

[MaximusRex]

What could change, or be improved upon to increase desirability of pure tanks in PvP?

 

I think that can be answered by looking at why hybrid tanks in DPS gear are popular currently, which is Pure Tanks in Tank gear don't gain much survivability, and lose a lot of DPS compared to hybrid tanks in DPS gear.

 

Mitigation in full tank gear needs to be more worthwhile

Lack of DPS either need to be augmented with better Tank DPS or better Tank tools to disrupt the opposing team, giving the tank a value that is strong but different then being able to burn an opponent down.

 

Some random ideas, that might be horrible because I haven't given them much thought:

Healing debuff

Casting Slows

Healing Absorption

DOTs of a fairly long duration applied with standard abilities, putting more healing stress out there.

Increase protection value of Taunts/Guard

[Notbk]

Hey folks!

 

Here are your top 3 questions, answered:

 

Powertech/Vanguard – 51.17%

Juggernaut/Guardian – 50.49%

Assassin/Shadow – 47.90%

 

 

This is inaccurate due to the very high number of people using the tank hybrid spec that are in tank stance but have most of their points in the DPS tree.

[TACeMossie]

This is inaccurate due to the very high number of people using the tank hybrid spec that are in tank stance but have most of their points in the DPS tree.

 

To be fair it shows that the vanguard is the best full tank out of the 3, just it cant be hybrided as easily as the other 2

Edited March 26, 2014 by TACeMossie

[idnewton]

This is inaccurate due to the very high number of people using the tank hybrid spec that are in tank stance but have most of their points in the DPS tree.

 

By definition, a player qualified as a tank in Ranked Arenas has at least half of his points in the tanking tree.

[brrr]

The one rough idea I think could be useful is adjust a few CD timers (Fire Pulse/Ion Pulse/Explosive Surge) and allowing the Pulse Generator stacks to be consumed with Fire Pulse. Maybe the same 20/40/60% damage per stack, and flat 40% slow (like Sweltering Heat) and each use of FP consumes one stack. A sort of Hybrid between Upper Hand stacks and the current Pulse Generator. It would give some variability to the spec, and increase some mobility and single target "burst" at the expense of AoE sustained. And of course FP would not longer be able to grant PG stacks, or else it would rather redundant.

 

I like this idea what I would try is something like a base damage increase on pulse cannon and having that generate stacks of pulse generator.

 

Maybe generate 1 stack with activation and 2 more stacks when damage is dealt, with a maximum of 3 stacks. Where the first 2 stacks would be generated immediatly if in range of anything with a chace of the 3rd stack 1 second in. Meaning the spec can be countered but not be completely shutdown for 15 secs.

 

Then I would put a 4.5 secs cooldown on fire pulse that consumes stacks while turning ion pulse into pure filler.

 

Basically keep the spec as a vanguards go to AOE spec, while making it easier to balance since fire pulse is a tactics only ability, that becomes the most important damage dealing ability. Thus achieving another goal of having the top tier skill be the something that pulls the whole spec together like what we see in all the sentinel trees.

[Narien]

Non-crit damage is often yellow as well. Yellow is simply force/tech, which is often shieldable (anything that isn't internal/elemental). Making crit damage shieldable would help, but wouldn't be enough. Also, it would alter the balance of DPS classes oriented around auto-crit attacks.

 

It would also change the way combat rolling functions on a fundamental level. Shield and Crit are opposing outcomes of the same roll if memory serves. By definition they can't occur at the same time.

 

That's not a reason in and of itself not to look at the idea, but it's going to have extremely far reaching consequences.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Narien

[TACeMossie]

In other news I am quite satisfied with their answers, with only a few small complaints, though I can understand the reasoning.

 

Complaint 1: They aren't addressing Tactics/AP damage

Common sense kicks in: AP is probably the strongest AoE spec in the game, as it has a hugely powerful attack that is on a 15 second cooldown with infinite targets. And to make it even more obvious, its better than 50% of the AoE specs in the game when it comes to single target damage, being beaten by Hybrid Sorcs/Sages and Engineering Snipers while beating All forms of Focus/Rage. As such, Im ok with them not buffing AP. Though I would really love it if Flame Barrage was less RNG-like outside of immolate so I could get a 3rd rocket punch free every 30 seconds. That and Retractable Blade being de-nerfed because the hybrid doesn't exist anymore.

 

Complaint 2: They aren't addressing Alacrity directly for procs

Common sense kicks in: Last time they did a major change to alacrity, it took a whole expansion (Update 2.0) for them to get it in the game. As such, I dont expect Alacrity to be reducing Internal and External cooldowns any time soon, and only in a few specific cases do I expect it to be compensated for when looking at designing internal cooldowns (e.g. Combat Sentinels get a +30% alacrity boost with Zen, and as such Hand of Justices 20-second internal cooldown accounts for a bit of alacrity. Similarly, mercenaries are 100% forced to have a minimum of 3% alacrity when going Arsenal spec, and there are very few talents out there worth grabbing besides more alacrity, so they got a 1 second leeway on Barrage. And Sages with Mental Alacrity and the ludicrous amounts of alacrity boosts, not only in the spec, but also in the set bonus, understandably also got internal cooldowns with a little bit of leeway)

 

Complaint 3: The change to Rapid Venting that they proposed will improve burst as well as sustained, which might cause PvP issues.

Common sense kicks in: They should really make it so that crits with burns vent heat, not make the talent give +2% ranged/tech crit. The option they give means the big bursts are gonna happen a bit more often (about 3-4% more often due to current crit rates) while the heat vents with crits on burns simply means you get to replace those Rapid Shots in the pyro rotation with flame bursts - something that is happening anyway in PvP because players dont have millions of health to get through so you can afford to burn all your heat into someone, as afterwards you can just sit back and recharge.

So yeah, I think Complaint 3 doesn't have a valid argument for why it shouldn't be there. But otherwise, the whole thing went well.

Edited March 26, 2014 by TACeMossie

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Decent answers, but still isnt throwing AP a bone. If AP was buffed, i would play both AP and Tank for PvE. Tank for Ops, and AP for dailies and PvP.

 

Tank - Why cant we light our Oil Slick with Flame Sweep? some AOE DoT damage for Tank PT would be cool! make it give high threat, and we will have no more threat issues.

 

Pyro - I dont really care for Pyro outside of Merc. but pyro needs a heat management bone, and some better DoT damage. Possibly a DoT damage booster ability at the level 30 range.

 

AP - Make the Flame Barrage from Flame Burst less RNG, maybe 50% at 2 points for Flame Burst? And less fluff talents, more damage boosting talents!

[AAntan]

Decent answers (thb I wasn't expecting them... we all know what happened to VGs), but one thing that has me worried is the lack of attention to AP when comes to PvE dps.

 

Right now, yes it's a heavy aoe spec and that can blast a lot of adds... but that isn't good enough if you have to beat an enrage timer where you need sustained single target damage (like Pyro). So the lack of mention of this spec on PvE makes me wonder if it will get some love or no.

[Gnimish]

My thoughts on pyro tree. Put alacrity skill in combat medic tree since they want it the most. Put the 3 point crit chance from combat medic in pyro tree. Problem solved. Pt's dont want alacrity. I dont want it on my commando dps. And while we are at it can we get the 3 point endurance skill scrapped and replace it with something useful for all ac's. Or at least move it over to the tanks tree since they are the only ones that might possibly take it. Just my 2 cents

[JMagee]

My thoughts on pyro tree. Put alacrity skill in combat medic tree since they want it the most. Put the 3 point crit chance from combat medic in pyro tree. Problem solved. Pt's dont want alacrity. I dont want it on my commando dps. And while we are at it can we get the 3 point endurance skill scrapped and replace it with something useful for all ac's. Or at least move it over to the tanks tree since they are the only ones that might possibly take it. Just my 2 cents

 

Where is this magic Combat Medic Tree on my VANGUARD skill tree display. Your suggestions may help Pyro Mandos, but is incredibly non-applicable for VG/ PT, which is the discussion at hand here.

 

So if your suggestion is to swap skills between different ACs, my counter would be that there has to be an easier way. No need, at the moment, to give Pyro Mercs any more help.

Edited March 26, 2014 by JMagee

[Gnimish]

Where is this magic Combat Medic Tree on my VANGUARD skill tree display. Your suggestions may help Pyro Mandos, but is incredibly non-applicable for VG/ PT, which is the discussion at hand here.

 

So if your suggestion is to swap skills between different ACs, my counter would be that there has to be an easier way. No need, at the moment, to give Pyro Mercs any more help.

 

Maybe im thinking of it wrong but since pyro is a shared tree if you change the tree for pt's i gets changed for mercs also. And i suggested crit chance cause its slready a tier 1 skill.

[JMagee]

Maybe im thinking of it wrong but since pyro is a shared tree if you change the tree for pt's i gets changed for mercs also. And i suggested crit chance cause its slready a tier 1 skill.

 

I agree with the shared tree/delicate part...but there's no reason to suggest they couldn't simply alter Assault for VGs/Pyro for PTs. If they can code skills to have IA proc on different abilities (CB/FA vs SS/IP) as well as the other differences in the two trees, I would imagine they could adjust damage values for VG spec independently of the Mando/Merc version.

 

But I agree in the end, the shared tree nature is going to make it take a bit more finesse to buff damage (maybe, I don't know anything about coding/how the abilities are coded) for Assault VGs, without impacting Pyro Mercs at all.

Edited March 26, 2014 by JMagee

[AAntan]

Maybe im thinking of it wrong but since pyro is a shared tree if you change the tree for pt's i gets changed for mercs also. And i suggested crit chance cause its slready a tier 1 skill.

 

The 2% Crit chance we talk about on PT comes from Rapid Venting (Talent that both Mercs and PT share on top of Pyro skill tree), the 2% Alacrity you are talking about is purely exclusive from Merc on Tier 1, which is replaced by 8% RP damage on PT Tier 1. So that's more a Merc/Commando issue than a Merc/PT share tree issue.

Edited March 26, 2014 by AAntan

[Kurin]

The only thing I find disappointing is what is implied by the answer to the first question. They know about a balance problem...a significant one...and they are not currently working on it at all.

 

The reason I find this disappointing is because I recall BW saying they preferred to buff lower specs to achieve balance, rather than nerfing the better specs, because nerfing generally causes the community to get upset (regardless of how OP you are, you never want your own spec nerfed). Well, we've seen numerous nerfs (and honestly, more are actually still needed), yet numerous buffs are still clearly needed.

 

My point: Finish the buffs BEFORE you continue working on more nerfs.

[Gnimish]

The 2% Crit chance we talk about on PT comes from Rapid Venting (Talent that both Mercs and PT share on top of Pyro skill tree), the 2% Alacrity you are talking about is purely exclusive from Merc on Tier 1, which is replaced by 8% RP damage on PT Tier 1. So that's more a Merc/Commando issue than a Merc/PT share tree issue.

 

Ah my mistake. Guess it has been awhile since iv actually looked at my Vanguards skill tree. Nm

[ViciousFett]

We are looking at ways to increase viability for all tanks in PvP. We don’t have specifics to announce at this moment but it is definitely something on our radar. In fact, this is definitely something we would love to see your feedback on. What could change, or be improved upon to increase desirability of pure tanks in PvP?

 

Add a healing debuff to the tank taunting abilities. It seems silly that it only reduces damage on enemy players, and does nothing to healing classes. To balance this with DPS builds make it so it only works in tank-stance (sort of like how the Jugg/Guardian taunt now works differently with a dps stance.)

Edited March 27, 2014 by ViciousFett

[ronniehenlau]

How to make tanks viable for pvp? Simple - to one of the top tier abilities, tie in a passive that makes your taunts reduce healing done by opposing healers for the duration of the taunt. 30% would probably help a lot, and would make bringing a tank completely essential for both ranked and regs!

[Avicii]

I think that can be answered by looking at why hybrid tanks in DPS gear are popular currently, which is Pure Tanks in Tank gear don't gain much survivability, and lose a lot of DPS compared to hybrid tanks in DPS gear.

 

Mitigation in full tank gear needs to be more worthwhile

Lack of DPS either need to be augmented with better Tank DPS or better Tank tools to disrupt the opposing team, giving the tank a value that is strong but different then being able to burn an opponent down.

 

Agree and this is a good point as someone that played a lot of the pre 2.0 Sin Darkness/madness hybrid and early specs like Iron-Fist and Carolina Parakeet. These are popular because you can guard and have some tanking tools but also the DPS to contribute and not be so reliant on a healer. As Koozie noted add some DPS gains to the top of the tank tree, it's the quickest and most likely easiest changes to make just make sure it isnt too much that makes them OP.

 

Really just look at why the hybrids are popular and figure out how to harness some of that into the tank trees and lock key stone tree abilities gained to the stances. Although I really dislike the removal of hybrids it's in a way a removal of options, heck Sins pre 2.0 there were 3+ good hybrids and the full trees that were all fun to play.

 

It's nice to see rational discussion and not a bunch of qq, outside of a few people, to the answers.

[buckman]

I don't think Tank spec players damage needs to be looked at, but I think that their ability to shut down the opposing players' damage on their teammates needs to be looked at.

[Melon_Lord]

Completely overlooked this before the questions went out, not that it's all too important, but it bothers me every time I look at it and I've sent it a good number of tickets yet never got a response. The tooltip for Flame Thrower reads "Torches *everything* in a 10-meter cone." It does *not* hit everything within its range, it only hits 5 at a time; similar to many other AoE skills sure, but many of those ones state they only hit 5. Likewise Pulse Cannon does not state a limit, so why is there one? Also DFA doesn't even specify what it hits, but its limit is 5. At least with DFA you can check Mortar Volley which does mention its 5 target limit.

 

Please fix the Flame Thrower tooltip or fix the skill.

[AxeDragoneth]

http://dulfy.net/2014/05/01/swtor-patch-2-8-pts-patch-notes/

 

We did it, guys.

Question Three response in the Patch notes.

Powertech

Shield Tech

 

Shield Vents now also vents Heat when an attack is defended against (such as being dodged or resisted).

Hydraulic Shield now has a chance to finish the cooldown on Rocket Punch when an attack is defended against.

Pyrotech (Powertech)

 

Power Bracer now additionally increases the damage of periodic elemental damage by 35%.

Rapid Venting has been replaced by Critical Venting. Critical Venting increases critical hit chance by 1%/2%, and reduces the cooldown of Vent Heat and Thermal Sensor Override by 15/30 seconds.

Edited May 1, 2014 by AxeDragoneth

[EGNbusa]

I seen a substantial dps increase on pts with the 35% increase, from like 2600 on the dummy to 3100 pretty regularly, so the changes are great for pve

[Sosajoshua]

The lack of improvements to Advanced Prototype dps is annoying.