23/5 Operative Class Rep Questions

[af_raptura]

pretty much what the above poster has said for lethality.

 

I just want to throw my 2 cents in. If I were to help lethality a bit with the ramp up time, I would let overload shot proc a TA with an internal rate limit of course (10-15 seconds, whatever is fair and doesn't overpower lethality ops for pve).

 

EDIT: as much as I would like some more survivability on my lethality op, it's hard to see it happening. Too many ops want to go concealment.

Edited May 3, 2014 by af_raptura

[Adovir]

Survivability is the main problem in pvp, which is apparently getting buffed for ...concealment only.

 

The changed to probe and the 100% heal on lethality were a good step in the right direction, but without some flat damage reduction on a class with a setup as ridiculously long as lethality (corrosive grenade, dart, and weakening blast all do VERY little to NO initial damage) most lethality ops in an arena environment faceplant before they can use the first cull. They need to add something like darkswell, when exiting stealth for 8ish seconds you have a huge survival boost, something to set up those dots and not get murdered while doing so, all 3 abilities + the 1.5sec GD takes about 6 seconds to get off.

 

In PvE I actually find our survivability to be just fine with the new probe and free heal on roll, I roll a lot to catch up to mobs, to avoid aoes, etc and just throw up that heal on my way back to the mob.

 

That however does not make us a desired pick. We still bring absolutely nothing but damage that snipers or maras can do just as well, along with group wide utility spells. What bugs me is how long this is taking to implement, RIFT fixed this issue for all DPS classes within the first few months of their release, ToR has been out for years now. Givesops something that they can bring to the raid other than damage.

 

And how long are we going to have absolutely stupid talents like stealth detection and dodge increase. I feel like that was put in concealment as a joke and accidently went out like that.

 

Class rep, dont focus just on concealment like the devs are doing now please. Yes concealment needs some survival as well, but while concealment can come out of stealth swinging and hitting like a monster, lethality is not only squishy as well but has to pray to whatever gods they worship that no one notices them poisoning people for (in pvp) an eternity.

 

Bro obviously you haven't read this thread too much because my self and others have advocated changes to lethality off the top of my head this is what I can think of that we've said

 

Roots in lethality

Increased acc reduct in flash powder

Make sever tendon generate a TA

Increase the slow on adhesive corrosives to 50%

Make stim boost increase defense chance on combat stims

 

Some new ideas

 

Augmented shields additionally increases dmg reduct by a small amount(idk yet pretty spamable skill)% for 6 seconds or for longer duration but put rate limit on it(say 10 sec but on a 48sec ICD so every 3rd probe does so)

 

Add hidden strike to lethality's fatality proc 100% chance(reduce in ramp up time 3 GCDs before you can start culling then weakening blast and shiv)

 

Merge counter strike and escape plan

Edited May 3, 2014 by Adovir

[Aikion]

Merge counter strike and escape plan

 

This is very unlikely due to the Lethality tree being shared with Snipers. Any merging of talents would affect them as well. Collaterally buffing Lethality Snipers might not be something they're looking to do.

 

Your best talents to target for future changes would be talents that are linked to class specific Abilities. Specifically:

• Combat Stims
  
• Cut Down
  
• Escape Plan
  
• Quickening
  
• Fatality
  

Edited May 4, 2014 by Aikion

[Adovir]

This is very unlikely due to the Lethality tree being shared with Snipers. Any merging of talents would affect them as well. Collaterally buffing Lethality Snipers might not be something they're looking to do.

 

Your best talents to target for future changes would be talents that are linked to class specific Abilities. Specifically:

• Combat Stims
  
• Cut Down
  
• Escape Plan
  
• Quickening
  
• Fatality
  

 

True but they also did say they were going to buff sniper defensives

[Dropfall]

I'm gonna put my hat into the ring and list some changes to make Lethality Ops more interesting and perhaps more survivable, at least from my perspective.

 

Lethal Dose: - In addition to what it currently says. 'Hidden Strike will now apply weaker versions of Corrosive Grenade and Corrosive Dart to the target, that deal 15% of the original effect's damage over 5 seconds.'

 

Boom; instant dotting of target, next GCD is Weakening Blast, then Cull, or just straight to Cull. No more ramp up complaints. The target will likely survive the initial burst, and will defend / counter attack, but it would put Lethality in a similar place to Concealment Ops when it comes to initial burst. Also means like a Concealment Op, they can stealth out and do it all over again to the poor bastard, lol.

 

Swap the places of Infiltrator and Hit and Run. That way both DPS specs can : 1) move slighty faster; 2) have the slight increase to stealth level. Lethality at the moment Infiltrator isn't taken as part of it's usual spec, and it could use it.

 

Fatality: Change to 100% chance to gain Fatality on using Shiv. Keeping the 10s internal cooldown.

 

I did have a big spiel on making Overload Shot proc TA, sharing a cd with Shiv, and then making it proc Fatality etc, etc. But its a little too much work tbh.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Dropfall

[Adovir]

Shameless bump

[The_Assuran]

I think the most important question I would ask is why DPS Ops are strictly inferior to DPS Assassins in PVP. The only benefit a DPS Op provides is Infiltrate, but that skill does not compare to what an Assassin brings to a 4v4 situation.

 

I don't know many who prefer 4v4 to 8v8, but the Dev's are clear it is not coming back. If that is the case, the DPS Operative needs significant changes so that they are Ranked PVP viable.

[Araberen]

As we'll not have any more control (like we have with KD), would be nice if we'll have "ultimate-interrupt" on Hidden Strike. In addition to root: just put bar on GCD, after we open. So, if enemy cast something it will interrupt (maybe put on cooldown), if he doesn't - just activate GCD. Nothing special, but we will have 1.5-1.3 sec (depends on alacrity) to act.

 

It's not stun, since the length is constantly changing based on stat. Against bads nothing will change, but good player can't just stun/knockback/stealh etc just another GCD.

 

Don't know how to implement 2GCD, so post about 1.

 

edited

Edited May 8, 2014 by Araberen

[snave]

For those of you not paying attention to the PTS discussions and changes this was posted today

 

Hi everyone!

 

Imperial Agent

Operative

Concealment

• Jarring Strike now also allow Hidden Strike to interrupt the target.
  
  
• Shadow Operative Elite now offers 15%/30% reduction in area of effect damage in addition to its other bonuses.
  
  
• Revitalizers now offers a 10%/20% damage received reduction while Stim Boosters is active in addition to the healing effects.
  
  

 

 

The changes are good but not ideal. We'll have to move points to be able to take Revitalizers and 20% on a 2 minute cool down doesn't set my loins on fire, it is however definitely positive and a step in the right direction.

 

The only way I can see this working in PvP is to drop points from Imperial Education which will result in a 6% drop in cunning. I haven't played around with my spec yet to see what kind of drop this will be but I can't see it being good for us and I do feel it's unreasonable for the devs to expect us to nerf ourselves in order for us to stay alive for more than 10 seconds.

[sqruee]

The only way I can see this working in PvP is to drop points from Imperial Education which will result in a 6% drop in cunning.

 

Maybe take the talent and switch to power augs? Probably still not worth it but worth testing I suppose...

[snave]

Maybe take the talent and switch to power augs? Probably still not worth it but worth testing I suppose...

 

I don't think that would be beneficial for us. IIRC cunning is slightly ahead of raw power even without the cunning % increase so even with a 3% increase it should still be the best option for us.

 

I just tried respeccing to see what the difference would be and it comes out like this:

 

With full Imperial Education:

 

Cunning: 3088

Crit: 25.87%

Bonus damage: 1338.7 (it's 1478.8 when bolstered)

 

With 1 point Imperial Education and 2 in Revitalizers:

 

Cunning: 2926

Crit: 25.54%

Bonus damage: 1304.6 (it's 1444.7 when bolstered)

 

I have "BiS" gear, maybe a little too crit heavy and by losing 6% my crit drops by .33% and I lose 34 bonus damage.

 

This decrease will be more severe in PvE where they have more main stat but they can probably get away with not putting points in to Jarring Strike instead, I don't think losing the interrupt / root / face back stab would severely impact them.

 

Personally I'd still rather they tied it in to ghost, a 6 second duration on a 45 second cool down for me suits the class better than 15 seconds on a 2 minute cool down and doesn't require us to change our spec up but even as it is I think that a 20% damage reduction for 15 seconds is a reasonable trade for .3 crit and 34 bonus damage.

 

I can see these changes making us far more viable in raids and in ranked. Definitely in raids.

[deanth]

For those of you not paying attention to the PTS discussions and changes this was posted today

 

 

 

The changes are good but not ideal. We'll have to move points to be able to take Revitalizers and 20% on a 2 minute cool down doesn't set my loins on fire, it is however definitely positive and a step in the right direction.

 

The only way I can see this working in PvP is to drop points from Imperial Education which will result in a 6% drop in cunning. I haven't played around with my spec yet to see what kind of drop this will be but I can't see it being good for us and I do feel it's unreasonable for the devs to expect us to nerf ourselves in order for us to stay alive for more than 10 seconds.

 

What's your talent distribution? My scrapper is 3/36/7, if this patch goes up as is, I'll probably drop the talent to reduce cc by 15s for revitalisers.

[snave]

What's your talent distribution? My scrapper is 3/36/7, if this patch goes up as is, I'll probably drop the talent to reduce cc by 15s for revitalisers.

 

This is the spec I use.

 

For PvP dropping the 15 seconds reduction to debilitate (Slip Away) so you can keep Imperial Education is pure madness. I would strongly advise against doing that.

 

For PvE, especially operations, you shouldn't really have points in Slip Away in the first place. Unfortunately I don't have an end game set of PvE armour so I can't tell you what the actual stat loss would be for taking 2 points out of Imperial Education but I'm willing to guess you're better off keeping Corrosive Microbes / Lethal Injectors.

[Adovir]

This is the spec I use.

 

For PvP dropping the 15 seconds reduction to debilitate (Slip Away) so you can keep Imperial Education is pure madness. I would strongly advise against doing that.

 

For PvE, especially operations, you shouldn't really have points in Slip Away in the first place. Unfortunately I don't have an end game set of PvE armour so I can't tell you what the actual stat loss would be for taking 2 points out of Imperial Education but I'm willing to guess you're better off keeping Corrosive Microbes / Lethal Injectors.

 

I have a decent amoun of 78's not really BiS and mainly for healing but I can give a general idea of the loss when I get home

[deanth]

This is the spec I use.

 

For PvP dropping the 15 seconds reduction to debilitate (Slip Away) so you can keep Imperial Education is pure madness. I would strongly advise against doing that.

 

For PvE, especially operations, you shouldn't really have points in Slip Away in the first place. Unfortunately I don't have an end game set of PvE armour so I can't tell you what the actual stat loss would be for taking 2 points out of Imperial Education but I'm willing to guess you're better off keeping Corrosive Microbes / Lethal Injectors.

 

Yeh, it's crazy to drop 15s cc reduction. From solo queue ranked warzones (I know it's not the best way to balance/judge classes), I've grown frustrated at how defenceless scrappers/concealment are (and cloaking screen/disappearing act doesn't help much), and people are learning that too.

 

Best case scenario is that they tie it in with sneak, but I can see people crying out that it's overpowered if we play carefully and move from single targets to single targets allowing us to get back into stealth consistently (which hardly happens), thus allowing us 20% reduction, hypothetically, forever. Also, we can maintain 24s of 20% reduction if it's tied to sneak, activate it then enter stealth, coming out of stealth sneak resets allowing another 6s, then disappearing act/cloaking screen and exit stealth for another 6s but don't engage in combat, then re-enter and pop out of stealth for another 6s. Also I mentioned in the PTS post as a small QoL change, reset sneak from entering or exiting stealth.

 

In ranked warzones, infiltrate/smuggle's advantage is minimal at best for a 3min cd ability. Your teammates don't get any increase in stealth level, so once an opponent see's a teammates in stealth, one aoe and you lose your stealth and advantage.

[snave]

Best case scenario is that they tie it in with sneak, but I can see people crying out that it's overpowered if we play carefully and move from single targets to single targets allowing us to get back into stealth consistently (which hardly happens), thus allowing us 20% reduction, hypothetically, forever.

 

Your practical applications there are a bit off. Sure we can keep it up indefinitely if we're out of combat but what use is a 20% damage reduction out of combat? Seems like a moot point to me.

 

Also, we can maintain 24s of 20% reduction if it's tied to sneak, activate it then enter stealth, coming out of stealth sneak resets allowing another 6s, then disappearing act/cloaking screen and exit stealth for another 6s but don't engage in combat, then re-enter and pop out of stealth for another 6s. Also I mentioned in the PTS post as a small QoL change, reset sneak from entering or exiting stealth.

 

This doesn't quite make sense. You could use it and then enter stealth for sure but you then have to close the gap between you and the enemy, you could double roll over to them to close the gap but then that's on cooldown too and also if you're that close to them it wouldn't be difficult at all for them to use whatever AoE / Stealth detection they have to break you out. It would be very risky for 3/4 seconds of protection.

 

If you then Cloaking Screen and leave stealth the enemy is able to hit you and put you back in to combat, even if they don't the rest of what you suggest is dependant on you being out of combat the whole time so refer back to my earlier point.

 

Realistically the most you'll have this active if it was to be tied in to Ghost / Sneak is 12 seconds, and because Hidden Strike is on a 10 second cool down we could even tie that together to be 2 x 6 consecutive seconds because then we wouldn't be able to use Hidden Strike which is a waste of our Cloaking Screen.

 

You could definitely open on someone chuck off a few moves and THEN do it, that would be assuming you aren't CC'd or kited for that period and also just to point out that if you aren't being targeted for this period then the whole chaining it together part is wasting a cooldown.

 

I get what you're saying for the most part but it simply wouldn't play out that way in the real? world.

 

In ranked warzones, infiltrate/smuggle's advantage is minimal at best for a 3min cd ability. Your teammates don't get any increase in stealth level, so once an opponent see's a teammates in stealth, one aoe and you lose your stealth and advantage.

 

I would argue that Infiltrate is actually harmful toward concealment 90% of the time. Your group doesn't have bonus stealth level and are easily spotted, that means you are easily spotted and brought out of stealth. Combine that with the usual muppet who can't manage to stay inside the field and your position is almost always given away.

 

Maybe they could tweak it so that everybody within the field takes X% less damage similar to the sniper ability but I can't see the devs ever doing something that would actually give us decent group utility, it just doesn't seem how they want the class to play.

[FoE_Khorne]

Hey snave / fellow ops. Looking for a bit of feedback here, and possibly a little more love for concealment before 2.8 is finalized.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=740867

[Thubb]

Move evasive imperative to the 2nd tier tier in the concealment tree in exchange for inclement conditioning. This would allow for any spec to have it. This would be throwing a bone to both of the dps specs. It will be especially helpful given the coming further increase of uncleasable dots. ( More Madness Sins and Annihilation Maras) Added: perhaps a 1 second reduction per point instead of 1.5 if it is felt to be too powerful to be that low in the tree?

 

- Move Chem-Resistant Inlays down to tier one either in the place of incisive action or precision instruments. This would allow dps specs to pick up the 4% DR with fewer points in the Medicine tree.

 

-Make Culling a 1 point talent to free up a point on that tier of the tree. (still 6% and 8 energy)

 

- Make revitalizers a passive heal for whenever the operative has Tactical Advantage up, and the DR apply when stim boost is up.

- Or make the revitalizers talent reduce the cooldown up stimboost by 10/ 20 seconds.

 

Personally though I really think it would be in the best interest of the class to have the 20% DR tied to Sneak via the Ghost talent, but I digress

I can get behind most of these changes. Iam however not a fan of linking any surviveability buffs to revitalizers (like most of us) , unless they completly rework the talent as a whole.

 

I personally wish they would bring back the dot cleanse on roll.( with an appropriate internal cooldown added of course)

Edited May 11, 2014 by Thubb

[Adovir]

I don't think that would be beneficial for us. IIRC cunning is slightly ahead of raw power even without the cunning % increase so even with a 3% increase it should still be the best option for us.

 

I just tried respeccing to see what the difference would be and it comes out like this:

 

With full Imperial Education:

 

Cunning: 3088

Crit: 25.87%

Bonus damage: 1338.7 (it's 1478.8 when bolstered)

 

With 1 point Imperial Education and 2 in Revitalizers:

 

Cunning: 2926

Crit: 25.54%

Bonus damage: 1304.6 (it's 1444.7 when bolstered)

 

I have "BiS" gear, maybe a little too crit heavy and by losing 6% my crit drops by .33% and I lose 34 bonus damage.

 

This decrease will be more severe in PvE where they have more main stat but they can probably get away with not putting points in to Jarring Strike instead, I don't think losing the interrupt / root / face back stab would severely impact them.

 

Personally I'd still rather they tied it in to ghost, a 6 second duration on a 45 second cool down for me suits the class better than 15 seconds on a 2 minute cool down and doesn't require us to change our spec up but even as it is I think that a 20% damage reduction for 15 seconds is a reasonable trade for .3 crit and 34 bonus damage.

 

I can see these changes making us far more viable in raids and in ranked. Definitely in raids.

 

sorry for the late responce was doing some stuff with my guild and i had to not play for a day or two because i would have probably tore someone a new one and would have gotten Gkicked

 

so with my somewhat ****** gear with out any buffs and with imperial education

cunning 3300

Crit: 22.6%

bonus damage(tech): 1472.7

 

With imperal education

Cunning: 3026

crit:22.06

bonus damage(tech): 1418.3

 

With imperial education 1 point

cunning: 3117

crit: 22.24

Bonus damage(tech): 1436.4

 

From what i can see its a pretty decent DPS loss but it shouldnt effect us too terribly because we are currently one of the highest parsing dps so a loss of something like ~20 dps shouldnt hurt too badly for abit of survivabiity.

 

From a complete PVE point of view the idea of losing even 100 dps(off of our ~4000 bringing us to around 3900 aka still well above exceptional dps) for a meaningful defensive CD ontop of the aoe damage reduct would defiantly make people more interested in us. In a HM DP/DF run with full healer gear and no dps gear(94.2% acc & no set bonus) I was around 3rd in dps (behind 2 dot smashes) it was pretty clear that our dps is good but the problem I found defiantly was that during heavy aoe phases or when adds would hop on me I would go from topped to 40% in seconds causing minor healer panic while our 2 dot smashes would be some where in the 60-70%'s so massive discrepancy in damage there.

 

We as a raid dps defiantly don't suffer very much from target switching where we just corrosive dart the target and go continue on where you left off in your rotation and as conc we have fairly low set up times to dps even when target switching with no TAs.

 

Sadly I can't say the exact same things for lethality I haven't actually seen any lethality parses for Ops but I know they're decent but suffer from the same problems of lack of DCDs and high aoe damage taken. Their target switching is very poor and their energy and dps are very RNG based off of fatality, This makes them very hard to play in any sort of ranked PVP and even in regs at time. I'm against removing rng completely bc that's boring but making it so that either hidden strike or weakening blast can proc fatality on a 100% chance with the same ICD as shive it would greatly help with energy management and damage. From a Target switching and pvp dps perspective I like the idea that on lingering toxins hidden strike would apply the two weak dots, this would vastly reduce set up times and target switching penalties lethality has to deal with. Being able to off load burst damage then apply strong dots over the weak ones would be a good and very strong fix.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Adovir

[Adovir]

*snip* .

 

I also think it is kind of valid for us to bring up the fact that we are now the only healer class that does not have any form of interrupt immunity. Sorcs have 12 secs and mercs are getting 6 base line and 12 through talents, I understand that we are able to cast on the move but that is only because we have no way to protect our casts that we channel or cast like the other classes making us almost 100% dependent on our insta casts and HoTs

[Haystak]

I also think it is kind of valid for us to bring up the fact that we are now the only healer class that does not have any form of interrupt immunity. Sorcs have 12 secs and mercs are getting 6 base line and 12 through talents, I understand that we are able to cast on the move but that is only because we have no way to protect our casts that we channel or cast like the other classes making us almost 100% dependent on our insta casts and HoTs

 

playing devils advocate here, but others would argue that we have the best instant heals in the game. It would also be hard to swing a operative buff in terms of healing, as even our small(yet significant) better healing stats still make us the more requested healer in 4mans atm.

.

[Adovir]

playing devils advocate here, but others would argue that we have the best instant heals in the game. It would also be hard to swing a operative buff in terms of healing, as even our small(yet significant) better healing stats still make us the more requested healer in 4mans atm.

.

 

Oh I definitely know that we're never going to get that I'm just saying that every other healer class complains that we only use our insta moves but it's because we have no move with makes it so that we can't get interrupted.

[snave]

playing devils advocate here, but others would argue that we have the best instant heals in the game. It would also be hard to swing a operative buff in terms of healing, as even our small(yet significant) better healing stats still make us the more requested healer in 4mans atm.

.

 

I don't think you're playing devils advocate here, operative heals have been borderline over powered for a very long time and are still widely considered essential for arena games, I don't think asking for buffs is going to go well.

 

All in all I still feel that Medicine is in a great place, I understand that some people may find it "boring" but that's a very subjective point and I don't feel it's something that will be looked at until the next expansion.

[FoE_Khorne]

so i guess the concealment players are perfectly happy with our current changes on the pts? The discussion / attention on us has disappeared entirely. It is fairly disappointing....

1 response to my post, and no other posts about operatives; is it safe to assume that everyone stopped caring?

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=740867

[deanth]

so i guess the concealment players are perfectly happy with our current changes on the pts? The discussion / attention on us has disappeared entirely. It is fairly disappointing....

1 response to my post, and no other posts about operatives; is it safe to assume that everyone stopped caring?

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=740867

 

I've lost all hope in them giving us any sort of communication until Operative/Scoundrel question time.