23/5 Operative Class Rep Questions

[snave]

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

 

That thread seems to be ignored mate, I made 2 posts in the announcement thread asking why there wasn't anything for operatives and that went ignored too.

 

It looks like we'll be getting those changes which is a good thing, I'm not sure what else we need to get for concealment really. I'd like the DCD to be tied in to something other than Revistalizers but hey, it's better than nothing and dropping 2 points from imperial education doesn't have a massive negative impact on stats.

 

I'll have to re do these questions shortly. I was hoping to get a response from one of the devs prior to that but it doesn't look like that's going to happen so I'll crack on to it over this week. Probably going to focus more on utility and lethality specs at the moment, it's quite unfortunate that 2.8 is happening so close to the dead line for the questions as I'd like to have tried out the changes in live play to get a better grasp.

[VanionDarklight]

Probably going to focus more on utility and lethality specs at the moment, it's quite unfortunate that 2.8 is happening so close to the dead line for the questions as I'd like to have tried out the changes in live play to get a better grasp.

 

Thanks for focusing on lethality Snave. Please ask them about being able to get tactical advantage with Severe Tendon or Overload Shot.

[snave]

Thanks for focusing on lethality Snave. Please ask them about being able to get tactical advantage with Severe Tendon or Overload Shot.

 

I think the common consencus is around a ranged method to get tactical advantage and I believe it's a fair shout. Whilst I do feel the class should need to run in to melee range to get a TA from shiv having another ability that allows you to generate one periodically from ranged would go a long way to helping the class find its feet, so to speak.

 

I don't think the ranged TA should be able to replace shiv and it needs to be on a long CD than shiv, perhaps linking it to weakening blast with it's 15s cooldown could be another option or even have TA proc from dots with a 15s ICD?

[VanionDarklight]

I think the common consencus is around a ranged method to get tactical advantage and I believe it's a fair shout. Whilst I do feel the class should need to run in to melee range to get a TA from shiv having another ability that allows you to generate one periodically from ranged would go a long way to helping the class find its feet, so to speak.

 

I don't think the ranged TA should be able to replace shiv and it needs to be on a long CD than shiv, perhaps linking it to weakening blast with it's 15s cooldown could be another option or even have TA proc from dots with a 15s ICD?

 

I love both ideas, it gets us what we what and yet keeps the spec balanced to where shiv is not replaced all together. I say go with them in your questions snave, you got this lethality op's blessing.

[eartharioch]

Probably going to focus more on utility and lethality specs at the moment, it's quite unfortunate that 2.8 is happening so close to the dead line for the questions as I'd like to have tried out the changes in live play to get a better grasp.

 

These are supposed to be questions, not begging for favors or buffs, so why focus on any particular spec when we have three great topics:

 

1) Why did you *really* remove Cover benefits from ops? The reason that they stated was "not part of original design", but the original designer said (around launch time) that it was. This fundamental disconnect between the current team and the original designers needs to be addressed, and we need to know what they currently think the class is supposed to be if it isn't how it was designed (since many of us have been playing the class since launch).

 

2) Why did ops get screwed with the Orbital Strike nerf that was supposedly targeted against snipers?

 

3) Explain why assassins got their knockdown changed to a stun and our got changed to a root (and why assassins got to keep the PVE knockdown).

 

I'd rather see honest answers to these questions so that we know if it's worth the time to keep playing our characters or if the devs really do want us to reroll.

[Adovir]

These are supposed to be questions, not begging for favors or buffs, so why focus on any particular spec when we have three great topics:

 

1) Why did you *really* remove Cover benefits from ops? The reason that they stated was "not part of original design", but the original designer said (around launch time) that it was. This fundamental disconnect between the current team and the original designers needs to be addressed, and we need to know what they currently think the class is supposed to be if it isn't how it was designed (since many of us have been playing the class since launch).

 

2) Why did ops get screwed with the Orbital Strike nerf that was supposedly targeted against snipers?

 

3) Explain why assassins got their knockdown changed to a stun and our got changed to a root (and why assassins got to keep the PVE knockdown).

 

I'd rather see honest answers to these questions so that we know if it's worth the time to keep playing our characters or if the devs really do want us to reroll.

 

For 1 I would say if we have lost cover bennifits can we get something that allows us to use explosive probe with out needing to drop in cover.

if cover was not a part of our classes original design then why are we still forced to go into cover to use explosive probe. The need to drop into cover to maximize on dps for both PVP and PVE makes the movement of the operative very odd. Along with awkward movement at times cover is also vital to leveling because of snipe and explosive probe require cover. If cover was not ment to be a part of our play style then why do we still have skills which require it?

 

2. We could also fit OS into our rotation pretty soundly because of small dry spells where we are waiting to get another TA for laceration or back stab so we too were getting the benefit from OS albeit ours was 15% weaker than the snipers but still a size able bit of dps we could get.

 

3. The "spamable" use of HS was the reason assassins have a much longer CD on their spike(30 seconds) to our previously 7.5 second cd on HS that ment 4 HSs could be used in the time of 1 spike or 6 seconds of CC as opposed to 2. So that's the reason, a pretty bs one but still the reason.

 

Honestly at this point we're getting for the most part what we want for conc in 2.8, even if it requires changing our skill trees around abit which I'm actually fine with bc we are at least getting it. So now we should mainly focus on QoL and lethality and it's common census that lethality needs another way to generate TA and have some way to do it at a range. Along with this since lethality is ment to be a kiting class they should have some form of root in the tree or have a better slow so they can effectively kite a melee better, either moving pin down into lethality or lower and putting it low teir so both dps can get it easily and possibly a defensive skill. Other than that we are fine there's going to be no healer buffs until the next Xpac if anything is going to be changed.

[deanth]

These are supposed to be questions, not begging for favors or buffs, so why focus on any particular spec when we have three great topics:

 

1) Why did you *really* remove Cover benefits from ops? The reason that they stated was "not part of original design", but the original designer said (around launch time) that it was. This fundamental disconnect between the current team and the original designers needs to be addressed, and we need to know what they currently think the class is supposed to be if it isn't how it was designed (since many of us have been playing the class since launch).

 

2) Why did ops get screwed with the Orbital Strike nerf that was supposedly targeted against snipers?

 

3) Explain why assassins got their knockdown changed to a stun and our got changed to a root (and why assassins got to keep the PVE knockdown).

 

I'd rather see honest answers to these questions so that we know if it's worth the time to keep playing our characters or if the devs really do want us to reroll.

 

Although those are very good questions, but I would prefer questions that asks where we are headed rather than questions about the past and what's been changed.

 

With regards to the knockdown, I'm guessing because of how hard hidden strike /shoot first does plus the 1.5s knockdown, we essentially get two hits in before they can respond. Where as the assassin /shadows stun hits for a very small amount, but leads to a big hit, soessentially just one big hit.

 

Thanks Snave for being very active with regards to the development of operatives and scoundrels.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

These are supposed to be questions, not begging for favors or buffs, so why focus on any particular spec when we have three great topics:

 

1) Why did you *really* remove Cover benefits from ops? The reason that they stated was "not part of original design", but the original designer said (around launch time) that it was. This fundamental disconnect between the current team and the original designers needs to be addressed, and we need to know what they currently think the class is supposed to be if it isn't how it was designed (since many of us have been playing the class since launch).

 

2) Why did ops get screwed with the Orbital Strike nerf that was supposedly targeted against snipers?

 

3) Explain why assassins got their knockdown changed to a stun and our got changed to a root (and why assassins got to keep the PVE knockdown).

 

I'd rather see honest answers to these questions so that we know if it's worth the time to keep playing our characters or if the devs really do want us to reroll.

 

I can completely agree with those statements. I can hardly play my Operative at all anymore because of the knockdown removal, though i may have found a really OP Lethality build that increases my survivability through the roof in PvP, so not all hope is lost. I think that we need Explosive Probe untied from cover for both Operatives and Snipers, it makes no sense for it to even be tied to cover... do i need cover to use the explosive probe to blow up the door to that jumping jack of a Jedi in Black Talon? No, you summon it and it does it's job of exploding...

 

Ops getting the Orbital nerf, well, i rarely used Orbital Strike as is, so i can kinda be meh with it, but i completely stopped playing my Gunslinger because of that nerf, the damage on OS/XS is so low that it made our signature skill hit like a wet noodle, AND they DIDNT nerf Force Storm which is ALOT more OP in both PvP and PvE not just because it's spammable but because it has both a Slow and a Stun whenever it ticks (though not in PvP).

[Adovir]

I can completely agree with those statements. I can hardly play my Operative at all anymore because of the knockdown removal, though i may have found a really OP Lethality build that increases my survivability through the roof in PvP, so not all hope is lost. I think that we need Explosive Probe untied from cover for both Operatives and Snipers, it makes no sense for it to even be tied to cover... do i need cover to use the explosive probe to blow up the door to that jumping jack of a Jedi in Black Talon? No, you summon it and it does it's job of exploding...

 

Ops getting the Orbital nerf, well, i rarely used Orbital Strike as is, so i can kinda be meh with it, but i completely stopped playing my Gunslinger because of that nerf, the damage on OS/XS is so low that it made our signature skill hit like a wet noodle, AND they DIDNT nerf Force Storm which is ALOT more OP in both PvP and PvE not just because it's spammable but because it has both a Slow and a Stun whenever it ticks (though not in PvP).

 

If you can't play the Op with out the knock down bro you got some serious problems. I understand that it requires a **** load of finesse and out playing now to be good in regs, which I kinda like because its that much more humiliating when I kill someone but that's my own personal opinion. But back to the subject if you can't bare with the loss of 1 GCD you should probably read up abit or just try and tough it through and figure out the little nuances that just playing with the nerf comes with .

 

Like I said in my post I defiantly think we should get skills untied to cover for QoL and maybe have snipe, Avery useless skill for us, be turned into a melee ability when you chose an Op as your AC. Maybe make it so that overload shot is a sniper only skill and increase its damage so engi has a proper filler skill and give us a new knife stab ability to make up for it, one that gives a more proper filler move for us at a moderate energy cost that DOESNT require tactical advantage just so our rotation doesn't feel so stagnant at times even if it comes at a minor decrease in ability damage in the case that they don't want to buff our dps

[ZetaaZ]

Personally i would be very interested to know about operatives AOE abilitys. This is mostly focused on PVE.

Yes yes, we have single target tree and then we have lethality. Both of them still are very bad on AOE damage. And i really mean the packs like in Corruptor zero where aoe dots are just meh...

 

Orbital / XS = Meh this wet towel is on 2,5s cast times and hits like my sister...

Grenade = Energy rape for the amount of damage it does

Carbine Burst = Another Meh....

 

Personally I would like to see skills like "tied to adhesive corrosives = also reduces energy cost of fragmentation grenade by 5/10 and if target is affected by your periodic damage effects makes corrosive grenade to have automatically critical hit on primary target"

[Adovir]

Personally i would be very interested to know about operatives AOE abilitys. This is mostly focused on PVE.

Yes yes, we have single target tree and then we have lethality. Both of them still are very bad on AOE damage. And i really mean the packs like in Corruptor zero where aoe dots are just meh...

 

Orbital / XS = Meh this wet towel is on 2,5s cast times and hits like my sister...

Grenade = Energy rape for the amount of damage it does

Carbine Burst = Another Meh....

 

Personally I would like to see skills like "tied to adhesive corrosives = also reduces energy cost of fragmentation grenade by 5/10 and if target is affected by your periodic damage effects makes corrosive grenade to have automatically critical hit on primary target"

 

Since lethality is supposed to be our aoe/sustained spec this idea is absolutely perfect IMO even if we didnt get the auto crit it would raise lethality's aoe capabilities greatly. Maybe for secondary targets the damage is increased by 20% along with the auto crit

[Nateous]

In case anyone hasn't noticed, the "focused concealment /scrapper thread" is no longer stickied on the pts. And not even first page worthy. So they don't reopen it, then let it drown in A sea of other posts... Its clear they do not care about us.

[Aikion]

Operatives/Scoundrels will always be one of, if not the best PvE-solo DPS, and the best PvE/PvP Healer class. But it can never be the hands down best class at any else for DPS. Here's why:

 

PvE

1. No %Damage reduction or temporary Immunity abilities.
   This effects PvP, too. The lack of these abilities hurt in PvE, because of their use in dealing with random mechanics, and emergent gameplay.
    
   Say I'm doing NiM Brontes, and an orb spawns right before a phase transition. If I'm on almost any other DPS class, I have a way to run right to the orb activate my %DR or Immunity and detonate it. This is a specific example, but it's an example of a broader problem with not having these abilities in a PvE setting.
    
   This is being partly fixed in 2.8. Adding 20% DR to Stim Boost/Pugnacity via Revitalizers/Surprise Comeback. We'll have to see how it plays out, but it still leaves Lethality/Dirty Fighting flapping in the breeze.
    
   
2. Gap closing + getting behind targets takes too long.
   This is mainly a problem for Concealment/Scrapper. This was lessened with the Exfiltrate/Scamper buff, but it's still an ever present concern.
    
   The first problem with our gap closer is that it only covers 24m, and requires two GCDs for full effect. The second problem is that not only do you have to get to your target, but you have to get behind your target. Which can be impossible to accomplish if you do anything to an add while gap closing it. So you're forced to sit on your hands while you're very likely the last melee DPS to get to a target.
    
   While we're not the worst in this regard. It is enough of an issue to get you benched if you're not superior in some other respect.
    
   
3. Very little utility in PvE.
   What we have: Dirty Rez, 10m AoE Mez and 10m root (in Conc/Scrapper)
    
   What we don't have: %group damage reductions, group damage buffs, armor debuff, 30m root, taunt, push, pull, knockback or any type of short-term immunity (CC, Physics, Damage).
   

 

PvP

1. Healing is a great defensive utility for ranged classes, not so much for DPS Scoundrels.
   Although it can be very good under the right circumstances. The problem is that it's a losing proposition to stand and heal and you contribute very little as you attempt to run and heal.
    
   While it can contribute to survivability a good bit. Our healing is counted against us as defensive utility, when it's way more situational to use than the other two healing classes. Add to that no instant healing abilities, because they are locked up in Medicine/Sawbones. And you end up with melee DPS class that is forced to run and hide to heal, and can't last very long in a stand up fight.
    
   
2. No %Damage reduction or temporary Immunity abilities.
   Sorcs/Sages are with us with lacking %DR cooldowns. Which is the main reason we do so well against them 1v1 in PvP. But they make up for it in other ways with their immunity bubble.
    
   This is being partly fixed in 2.8. Adding 20% DR to Stim Boost/Pugnacity via Revitalizers/Surprise Comeback. We'll have to see how it plays out, but it still leaves Lethality/Dirty Fighting flapping in the breeze.
    
   
3. We're one of two melee classes that have no way to quickly gap close opponents or teammates on different levels, or abilities to bring them down to your level.
   Again, not the only class that suffers from this, Assassins/Shadows DPS are in the same boat unless they've preemptively placed their Phase Walk in the right place.
   

 

There's probably a few other issues I've missed, but that's the main thrust of the problem. Until all these issues are addressed, and I'm not holding my breath, we will continue to be passed over for other classes in PvP and PvE for DPS roles.

Edited May 16, 2014 by Aikion

[snave]

Thank you to everyone for your continued input to these questions, we may not have the largest or most active community but we certainly do have a lot of players who are both passionate and knowledgeable about their class.

 

There isn't long to go now until the question are taken so I'll be revising these over the weekend, I'm going to assume that the PTS proposal are going to make it to live although I do fear that these changes will be used as a smokescreen to not address other issues the classes have. To try and counter this I'll incorporate the changes in to the questions so hopefully they wont try to side step the overall issue like in the previous rounds of questions.

 

At this point it seems that mainly quality of life changes would be the most beneficial to us but I'll re-read through this entire thread again and piece together the things that need to be asked.

 

Thank you again for your input on these, it's greatly appreciated and I encourage everyone to do it.

[Aikion]

Hey maybe throw in a rhetorical question asking, "Why do we have cover-only abilities if we're not meant to be using cover?"

 

Operatives and Scoundrels

• Operatives and Scoundrels can now be charged and pulled by other players while in cover. For Snipers and Gunslingers, cover remains unchanged.
  

 

Operatives and Scoundrels are very slippery, and we never intended for them to continue using cover after choosing to be an Operative/Scoundrel rather than a Sniper/Gunslinger at level 10. However, with the innate cover defenses being provided to Operatives and Scoundrels, we incentivized the use of cover beyond level 10 for them. Some Operatives and Scoundrels picked up on this incentive and used cover to become more survivable than we had intended for them to be.

 

With this change, we are moving all remaining defensive bonuses granted by cover into the Hold Position passive ability, which Snipers and Gunslingers already have. So while Operatives and Scoundrels will still be able to enter cover to use any abilities that require it, they will no longer gain any defensive bonuses while in cover. For Snipers and Gunslingers, this change has no real, noticeable effect. (Source)

This thought lead me to a Huge tangent that I've split to another more relevant post.

Edited May 18, 2014 by Aikion

[eartharioch]

Hey maybe throw in a rhetorical question asking, "Why do we have cover-only abilities if we're not meant to be using cover?"

[/url]

 

Or ask if we're not supposed to be using cover, then why did the devs say this 18 months before saying we weren't:

 

01.11.2012 , 06:36 PM | #47 This is the last staff post in this thread.

Let me be completely clear here:

 

The behavior you describe is a legitimate ability for the cover classes, it absolutely works as designed. While in cover state (which does NOT require physical cover to be present), they cannot be charged or leaped at. Gunslingers/Snipers also gain a 20% defense bonus while in cover.

 

The additional bonus of having physical cover (e.g. kneeling behind an object breaking line of sight to the attacker) is that normal ranged attacks will not hit you unless you expose yourself to the attacker (e.g. by shooting them).

 

TL;DR: Works as Designed

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1503885#post1503885

[snave]

Updated questions. Feedback would be appreciated.

[Danylia]

Updated questions. Feedback would be appreciated.

I can only repeat what I said earlier in this thread. While the questions are well-thought-out, they are also rather broad and unspecific. Which means, we risk the answers to be hit/miss - hit if they will address all the subpoints in detail, miss if they will be equally broad and unspecific.

[Aikion]

I was going to add in that the +5 energy set bonus was acting more like +5% energy, shifting the tiers of energy regen as well as increasing max energy. But, after some cursory testing on my Scoundrel it seems this is no longer the case. Can someone else confirm this? Edited May 19, 2014 by Aikion

[snave]

I can only repeat what I said earlier in this thread. While the questions are well-thought-out, they are also rather broad and unspecific. Which means, we risk the answers to be hit/miss - hit if they will address all the subpoints in detail, miss if they will be equally broad and unspecific.

 

I disagree with this point. The actual question is very open and can only be answered with a plan "no" if the dev is intentionally being facetious. The sub points are there to highlight the severity of each question and to provide context as to why we're asking them, to be honest I don't think I could really make the questions any more open.

 

What I'm trying to do is provide the person answering with the reason for the question, the points on how it effects us in game and then leave it open for them to discuss how they feel and interpert this data. Previous class rep questions have been very specific, the results of those closed questions were generally taken very badly by the community at large and it's something I'm actively looking to avoid.

 

The last thing I want is another "heal to full" debacle that causes what little is left of the operative community to reroll or rage quit. If these questions are not answered fully it will be through conscious choice, not from a lack of prompts and that in itself will give us the answer to the biggest operative question - Do bioware even care about our class.

[Aikion]

Another thing I just thought of. They said this about Phase Walk:

 

It is safe to assume Phase Walk was primarily designed for PvP, but that does not mean you could not lay it down where you know you might later need to be in certain encounters to save yourself a Force Speed cooldown and move to that location faster. We already have some distant plans to improve Phase Walk for damage dealing Assassins/Shadows in PvE (but we cannot let that cat out of the bag just yet), and we will also consider additional improvements to Phase Walk as well. We welcome your ideas in this regard, and we look forward to reading them in your replies.

 

Perhaps Smuggle/Infiltrate should be mentioned in our PvE or Wildcard question as it's entirely unusable in PvE, and of questionable value in PvP.

 

On the whole a good job framing the questions. Instead of asking specifically about certain abilities or problems, you're throwing at them all of our concerns and asking what's their plan for fixing them. An interesting tactic for sure.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Aikion

[Adovir]

Snave could you also weave in the question of if cover is not an intended mechanic for us why must we use cover to use moves such as explosive probe and snipe, while the latter is situational the former is a very powerful skill that is used In our rotation essentially on CD. Because of the need to get into cover we are forced to spend that 1 GCD kneeling down to apply the probe which if it is a ranged target has a much higher chance of getting away. This also forced us to use our exfiltrate ability prematurely so when we do reach the target if(when) we do get there we get knocked away and have no way to get back to the target or if we need to get away for what ever reason our gap creator is on CD.

[eartharioch]

For Quality of Life, could you add something about getting the Knockdown back for PVE opponents (like the assassins got)? You mentioned it in the first post of this thread, but it isn't in the second post (the one with the actual questions).

[snave]

Perhaps Smuggle/Infiltrate should be mentioned in our PvE or Wildcard question as it's entirely unusable in PvE, and of questionable value in PvP.

 

Will add this in and update it, I thought I'd already used this but clearly I forgot to add it in.

 

Snave could you also weave in the question of if cover is not an intended mechanic for us why must we use cover to use moves such as explosive probe and snipe, while the latter is situational the former is a very powerful skill that is used In our rotation essentially on CD. Because of the need to get into cover we are forced to spend that 1 GCD kneeling down to apply the probe which if it is a ranged target has a much higher chance of getting away. This also forced us to use our exfiltrate ability prematurely so when we do reach the target if(when) we do get there we get knocked away and have no way to get back to the target or if we need to get away for what ever reason our gap creator is on CD.

 

Crouch isn't on the GCD and we lose nothing other than a little bit of mobility if trying to use it when moving, you can actually use explosive probe whilst rolling to cover if you're fast enough. Snipe really shouldn't be used, 99% of the time there's a better option.

 

I don't quite get what you mean about wasting a roll to get explosive probe off sorry, I have addressed the lack of cover from crouch in my points and adding this in isn't difficult. I'll update now.

 

For Quality of Life, could you add something about getting the Knockdown back for PVE opponents (like the assassins got)? You mentioned it in the first post of this thread, but it isn't in the second post (the one with the actual questions).

 

You're correct, that was in my original points and I've accidentally removed it as the other part of that point was to do with the interrupt on hidden strike. Updating it now.

 

Please keep checking through the questions, anything at all you'd like me to add or consider I'm more than happy to do.

[Adovir]

Also a suggestion I'm supprised we never thought of earlier, moving chem resistant inlays into conc or lethality. I think it would work better to move it into lethality and swap out deadly directive for it that way all specs can get the 4% dr