Operative / Scoundrel Top 3 Answers

[Rocanon]

Speaking from a perspective of someone who only plays concealment.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like we were just told we should heal or flat out give up on ranked, or perhaps WZs in general. We don't need to be the "best" option.. that was never stated as a request. We just need to be 'an option'. Considering that question was avoided.. not looking good.

 

Yay for decontextualization! Its like they're saying exactly that if you ignore the followup sentence.

 

We are not yet certain that the improvements we have made for damage-dealing Operatives/Scoundrels will be enough, but we will continue to monitor their performance in PvP and continue to improve them, if necessary.

 

Its almost like they said that the perception that operatives should heal rather than DPS is correct....but also that they're trying to change that and will continue to tweak irt.

 

The words "We are not yet certain" used to describe Concealment's situation shows that the combat team really doesn't understand our current situation. If they did, they would know that the recent changes, while a good step in the right direction, will not change our status. We're nowhere near viable, despite our high damage ( and that's if we get lucky with our crits). The ability to survive just isn't there.

 

The words "We are not yet certain" shows that they feel the changes made need actual testing and not just people whining on the forums. They presumably felt they were sufficient from internal testing but need a higher volume of data to be sure.

 

Of course you've actually tried their changes instead of just whining about them not being enough, right?

 

In light of that, the rest of the post really just looks like lip service. We've all heard the "We've got exciting changes in the future." line before. Either the combat team has given up on concealment, or just doesn't care anymore. One can argue that they are justified in doing so.

 

Only on the swtor pvp forums would "We're working on changes" mean "we aren't doing anything and don't care about you go away".

 

The direction the class has taken has caused many people to leave the game/switch to other classes. Operative/scound forums are practically devoid of life. Multiple class reps have quit and I doubt snave will give it another go (he really shouldn't bother after what happened with the original submissions.) Not enough people play the spec to warrant the combat team investing time or effort into fixing an incredibly hard class to balance properly.

 

Part of any competitive game is an ever shifting balance. Can you honestly contend that bioware is slower than they should be on their fixes? Absolutely, they've needed to balance adjust much more aggressively than in the past (though the pace has picked up recently and for the better).

 

People have also said the same thing about literally every other class, its the same complaints from everyone. People need to put up or shut up because they've been threatening to quit for a million bloody years about every little thing and I can't imagine Bioware cares at this point. They've got to just be numb to it.

 

Regarding the class rep thing, I think it was a terrible idea because it was predicated on the assumption that the community could interact with the devs like adults, and would understand how dialogue works/that this was a mechanism to communicate and not a forum for everyone's pet stupid idea to get implemented.

 

There wont be any further Dev responses to this thread I bet. People's excellent suggestions will not be looked at or considered. There wont be any dialogue, and I doubt there will be any major changes until the level cap has increased.

 

What do you want them to say? "We're sorry you think we're retarded and called us a bunch of names, but hey maybe you could actually read the things we said initially here if we rephrase them enough?" or "Hey we know you think the changes weren't big enough, but you guys understand that we have to adjust balance in small increments or it gets even more messed up?"

[Lemmeron]

Hi Rocanon,

 

DPS Operatives are frustrated because the devs have said they are working on fixing us in regard to pvp for a long time and it gets to a point where people who have contributed and communicated in an adult fashion are sick of being ignored.

 

If you look at our forums and the dev communication on this forum compared to some of the others, I believe you too would see a comparative void in communication from their side here. The class rep thing isnt working, because the communication isn't 2 sided.

 

The general opinion expressed by DPS operatives is rarely buff our DPS so we can top parses, but rather buff our burst DEFENSES so we can live long enough to contribute meaningful DPS or give us an ability to distract other classes from being able to do their jobs properly (except for killing us quickly and resuming said job)

 

If operatives are only meant to heal, then give us 3 different heal trees and be done with it

[Rocanon]

Hi Rocanon,

 

DPS Operatives are frustrated because the devs have said they are working on fixing us in regard to pvp for a long time and it gets to a point where people who have contributed and communicated in an adult fashion are sick of being ignored.

 

If you look at our forums and the dev communication on this forum compared to some of the others, I believe you too would see a comparative void in communication from their side here. The class rep thing isnt working, because the communication isn't 2 sided.

 

The general opinion expressed by DPS operatives is rarely buff our DPS so we can top parses, but rather buff our burst DEFENSES so we can live long enough to contribute meaningful DPS or give us an ability to distract other classes from being able to do their jobs properly (except for killing us quickly and resuming said job)

 

If operatives are only meant to heal, then give us 3 different heal trees and be done with it

 

And they're adjusting our survivability. They can't just be like "HERE COOLDOWNS GOGOGO" because even minor tweaks to cooldowns can be really unbalancing (Enraged Defense et al)

 

Its also ridiculous to imply that they're not ever adjusting balance. Lethality got buffed and has been viable since 2.0, concealment is incredibly strong in pve. There are other classes who went just as long without balance adjustment or longer.

[Lemmeron]

I am talking pvp not pve, and i didnt imply that they were not working on balance. I am saying they need to seperate DPS and healers in their metrics for pvp and make adjustments high in the respective trees to get the balance right. I am also saying they dont give this small operative community much feedback compared to some of the other class communities. Edited June 17, 2014 by Lemmeron

[Liquor]

LoL

 

5char

[Gyronamics]

The set bonus commentary has me depressed honestly. They've been so bad for TWO YEARS and it's just clear BW think that's ok. Our raw dps/hps being in a good place is not an acceptable answer. Set bonuses don't have to buff those. Of the set bonuses anyone cares about (the 2-sets) half of them are survivability for gods sake.

 

Simple enough. They swap the 4 set and 2 set bonuses for dps.

 

Or take off x% damage and put it on the set bonus for no meaningful change but it keeps set bonus complaints down.

 

Or they spend their time on something useful.

 

 

Look on the bright side. When you're gearing up it doesn't cause drama if you have to choose between blank armourings or staying on a lower tier set bonus piece. Unlike some set bonuses I can think of.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Gyronamics

[Adovir]

Simple enough. They swap the 4 set and 2 set bonuses for dps.

 

Or take off x% damage and put it on the set bonus for no meaningful change but it keeps set bonus complaints down.

 

Or they spend their time on something useful.

 

 

Look on the bright side. When you're gearing up it doesn't cause drama if you have to choose between blank armourings or staying on a lower tier set bonus piece. Unlike some set bonuses I can think of.

 

And how does this help anything?

[kvandertulip]

The idea that giving +5 energy as a 4-piece set bonus when other classes are getting +10% damage or +15% crit is ridiculous. Scoundrel damage is not ahead of most of the classes that have significantly better bonuses especially in pvp. That answer was a total cop-out. The fact that not a single set bonus has been changed since 2.0 leads me to believe that they just don't have the resources to change them or just can't be bothered. I fully expect them to leave the broken gunslinger 4-piece pvp bonus unchanged as well.

 

As to the pvp question, that answer was worse than the heal-to-full in my opinion. I really can't believe they are actually telling people to just play heals.

 

The best way to improve Dirty Fighting in my opinion is to give a short window of knockback protection. The set up for your burst in this spec is very long and if your burst is constantly being interrupted with knockbacks your damage is reduced to nothing but dot damage. My suggestion would be to give 3 seconds of knockback/root immunity after an Unfair Advantage proc, make the proc 100%, and bump the ICD up to 12 seconds.

[BobaFaceroll]

No surprises in those answers. Thanks to Snave and everyone that actually gave thoughtful feedback and tried to frame useful questions. Don't be too disappointed, it is what it is.

 

General: Stop wasting time asking for changes to set bonuses. They know ours are worthless, they've know this for a long time, and they've had suggestions for better alternatives for a long time. People have asked literally for years for something (anything) besides +5 Energy as a 4 set. They're still worthless, which should tell you something. It's not going to change as there just isn't enough dev time to make changing these a priority. Working set bonuses, even terrible ones, will stay in place and work will be done on other things.

 

Lethality: You can suggest changes to Lethality but I wouldn't hold your breath for anything major. The tree has felt clunky since its initial release. Despite some positive improvements over time the core mechanics remain the same. Other than something simple like a 100% proc chance on Fatality I wouldn't expect any changes. Luckily I think that would be enough of a QoL change (and a little DPS bump) so I'd be happy with that.

[Gyronamics]

And how does this help anything?

 

Q: We want set bonuses to do something

 

A: Damage and healing is already top end, no boosts needed to set bonuses.

 

It's a complete waste of time to demand to be gimped by having part of your damage/healing rely on having a 4 set bonus.

 

There is a separate issue which people are trying to blur into it of wanting special effects but set bonuses are not a place for unique abilities to be unlocked.

[Adovir]

Q: We want set bonuses to do something

 

A: Damage and healing is already top end, no boosts needed to set bonuses.

 

It's a complete waste of time to demand to be gimped by having part of your damage/healing rely on having a 4 set bonus.

 

There is a separate issue which people are trying to blur into it of wanting special effects but set bonuses are not a place for unique abilities to be unlocked.

 

We aren't asking for damage. We want defense. We want our 4set to be useful and hey our 4 set is useless and we want defense maybe you can put 2&2 together.

[Altheran]

• Reliably leaving combat after a precise amount of time is a problem that has plagued stealth classes for a while now, but hopefully we can fix the issue or find a much more reliable way of dropping combat in PvP.
  

 

You really should consider moving away from the "combat = no stealth" design.

 

Of course that it's not that simply done, you'd likely have to think of new modalities for stealth, and probably to take some measures for DoT/HoT specs (Shadow's/Assassins' Balance/Madness included), but at least it would have the merit to not deny players their core mechanic because of something they do not have any control over.

[johnatters]

You really should consider moving away from the "combat = no stealth" design.

 

Of course that it's not that simply done, you'd likely have to think of new modalities for stealth, and probably to take some measures for DoT/HoT specs (Shadow's/Assassins' Balance/Madness included), but at least it would have the merit to not deny players their core mechanic because of something they do not have any control over.

 

This would be a game changer. I'd be content with being squishy if I could disappear more...

[Adovir]

You really should consider moving away from the "combat = no stealth" design.

 

Of course that it's not that simply done, you'd likely have to think of new modalities for stealth, and probably to take some measures for DoT/HoT specs (Shadow's/Assassins' Balance/Madness included), but at least it would have the merit to not deny players their core mechanic because of something they do not have any control over.

 

Now that I think about it what if it is a fix as simple as adding in a "if, then" statement to the stealth design, "if player has not engaged in combat for X seconds then stealth is useable" dots will affect this so specs like madness&lethality, the two specs that do not really benefit from stealth will not be able to constantly restealth while concealment and deception, the two which benefit from stealth, would be able to go in and out more frequently. This wouldn't really break deception either because it won't exit you from combat so recklessness won't constantly be off of CD, this would help decept in PVE btw because of fights that have delays in it there is the ability to restealth and get the dark embrace buff. But that's all abit off topic

[Gyronamics]

We aren't asking for damage. We want defense. We want our 4set to be useful and hey our 4 set is useless and we want defense maybe you can put 2&2 together.

 

Special abilities do not belong on a set bonus.

 

No set bonus anywhere causes a sudden and dramatic change in your defences. Not even 4 set bonus for assassins which is flat 2% damage reduction.

 

They've only ever been slight changes to abilities we already have.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Gyronamics

[Adovir]

Special abilities do not belong on a set bonus.

 

No set bonus anywhere causes a sudden and dramatic change in your defences. Not even 4 set bonus for assassins which is flat 2% damage reduction.

 

They've only ever been slight changes to abilities we already have.

 

We have been wanting changes to certain talents that are quite useless and making them useful not new stuff. Also these ideas are partially for the new content that should be coming in 3.0 or next xpac where abilities are often added or trees are partially reworked. The set bonuses can give increases which can be very beneficial such as lowering CDs on knock backs increasing self healing(by a small amount but still) increasing duration of defensive abilities or lowering the cool downs on them. When looked at in this light they augment things so that they bece more helpful/ available thud more survivable. So set bonuses could be changed to make life better

[Bombbuster]

In a distant future update, we will be adding some group utility for Operatives/Scoundrels in exchange for some of that raw healing and damage

Somehow, I don't envision this increasing the number of players playing scoundrels/operatives. Rather the opposite I suspect.

 

Perhaps the dev team doesn't see that as a problem but I do; when a player has invested time and effort into a character and that character gets side-lined in group activities dues to class imbalance, some of those players are inevitably going to unsubscribe.

 

When that happens, we all lose.

[Uber_the_Goober]

Somehow, I don't envision this increasing the number of players playing scoundrels/operatives. Rather the opposite I suspect.

 

Perhaps the dev team doesn't see that as a problem but I do; when a player has invested time and effort into a character and that character gets side-lined in group activities dues to class imbalance, some of those players are inevitably going to unsubscribe.

 

When that happens, we all lose.

 

I don't understand...why this is so hard to understand...Bioware what are you doing?

[Transcendent]

So for every other class group utility can be given while not effecting their total damage or healing but for the operative, a class that does not have the highest damage capabilities nor total healing, although our healing is very "easy" compared to the others and is more than viable, have to give up some of our damage and healing to get utility?

 

DPS Mercs went through the same pain when being given Kolto Missile in 2.0, while our Kolto Overload was nerfed into being pretty much utterly useless (only triggers at 30%, when in PVP that 30% disappears quicker than a jack rabbit down a hole). Group utility for the win eh?

 

a pretty well known theory of why the operative and scoundrel community died out was because the fact that our DPS were no longer viable and only our healers were and many did not want to play a healer but a dps instead.

 

Either that or the 2.6 Orbital Strike nerf removed a lot of the fun playing the class (especially as a healer doing PVE dailies solo ). Can understand it being nerfed for Snipers, not for Operatives though. Not interested in the theory crafting / developer responses on that, it simply made it less fun to play, period.

 

Slightly concerned about the whole removal of some of the damage / healing to add group utility. May completely mothball my operative when that happens.

[ArchangelLBC]

Re: the OP… Apparently the developers have changed their DPS balance philosophy. Again. I officially give up on trying to understand what they're doing in that department. To be clear, I'm specifically referring to the damage-vs-utility tradeoff that they seem to imply, which is a highly short-sighted design philosophy that misses the number one job of a DPS: doing damage.

 

I've been telling you for a long time KBN, you simply can't draw any conclusions about their balance philosophy from things they say, or even things they do, because they are just consistently mutually contradictory. They say one thing here, another thing there. There's no real rhyme or reason to it. This is just another case in point. In the past they've said there shouldn't be a utility tax for damage or survivability and now they're saying there should be.

 

Devs, how can we have any sort of meaningful conversation if you can't be bothered to get a consistent design philosophy? Keep in mind that many of the best suggestions will come from people who have some idea in their minds of what you yourselves consider acceptable. When that changes from post to post, it makes it hard to come up with decent suggestions.

 

BTW the set bonus thing is an absolute copout.

[Adovir]

DPS Mercs went through the same pain when being given Kolto Missile in 2.0, while our Kolto Overload was nerfed into being pretty much utterly useless (only triggers at 30%, when in PVP that 30% disappears quicker than a jack rabbit down a hole). Group utility for the win eh?

.

 

I actually prefer the 2.0 KO on my VG partially cuz I played tank at the time but also because felt that it was better with CC, neural surge and cyro grenade made it a really strong skill IMO but you're untitled to your opinion. But Ops also got infusion changed which screwed the dps be bc they killed the up front heal gave it a 9 second HoT and put a 9 second cd on it, while I prefer the old version better some prefer the new, but we did not receive any group ability compensation for it. But let's not get side tracked, while I would love for Op off healing to feel much more available ik it won't happen

 

Also yeah the OS nerf was kinda a slap to the face and made the class feel less fun in dailies

Edited June 17, 2014 by Adovir

[BobaFaceroll]

Funny you should mention Orbital Strike. I took my Op out to Black Hole last week to run the dailies. I needed a few Classic Comms to get some cosmetic boots for Vector. Anyway...

 

Orbital Strike will fail to wipe a group of L50 mobs without at least one strike being a critical hit. It was truly laughable. Gear is all 180s, not all BIS yet but certainly not just a Comms gear setup. In other words ludicrously overgeared compared to normal mobs in the Black Hole. It was faster to use Hidden Strike then 3 Lacerates and one shot each mob in a group than cast Orbital and hope you get enough crits to clear the group.

 

It's a perfect example of why I have no faith in the dev's ability to balance anything properly, or with any consistency of purpose. My 52 Marauder with around 45% less main stat and less than half the Power can leap in to groups of mobs on Makeb and one shot them with Smash. It's hilarious and pathetic at the same time.

[Haystak]

Funny you should mention Orbital Strike. I took my Op out to Black Hole last week to run the dailies. I needed a few Classic Comms to get some cosmetic boots for Vector. Anyway...

 

Orbital Strike will fail to wipe a group of L50 mobs without at least one strike being a critical hit. It was truly laughable. Gear is all 180s, not all BIS yet but certainly not just a Comms gear setup. In other words ludicrously overgeared compared to normal mobs in the Black Hole. It was faster to use Hidden Strike then 3 Lacerates and one shot each mob in a group than cast Orbital and hope you get enough crits to clear the group.

 

It's a perfect example of why I have no faith in the dev's ability to balance anything properly, or with any consistency of purpose. My 52 Marauder with around 45% less main stat and less than half the Power can leap in to groups of mobs on Makeb and one shot them with Smash. It's hilarious and pathetic at the same time.

 

What I dont understand is the 3 second cast timer. Made some sense when it hit hard, but after the nerf, what are you really worried about. Orbital/Freighter Flyby hits like a dot. With the 3 second cast bar plus 2.5 second delay after its cast, its only good for one thing in pvp, and thats preventing caps, plants, and disarms.

 

Get rid of the 3 second castbar, keep the 2.5 second delay, the ability is not fun with both of them.

 

It used to be someone fun when you could mez, throw a sabotage charge, cast Freighter flyby, and then hit like a friggen truck in one GCD with an added Shootfirst or Back-blast, but with a little damage as you can get from freighter flyby, its not even worth the 2 gcds it takes to cast in terms of damage.

[jack__]

I actually prefer the 2.0 KO on my VG partially cuz I played tank at the time but also because felt that it was better with CC, neural surge and cyro grenade made it a really strong skill IMO but you're untitled to your opinion. But Ops also got infusion changed which screwed the dps be bc they killed the up front heal gave it a 9 second HoT and put a 9 second cd on it, while I prefer the old version better some prefer the new, but we did not receive any group ability compensation for it. But let's not get side tracked, while I would love for Op off healing to feel much more available ik it won't happen

 

Also yeah the OS nerf was kinda a slap to the face and made the class feel less fun in dailies

 

The old infusion was awful. It was a heal that used more resources than kolto injection, healed less, and only had a half a second less cast time. It was basically a worse version of surgical probe.

 

As for lethality changes I would like to see some changes with the fatality talent. If it effect could be changed to "makes your next cull free and not require TA" and it's chance to proc was changed to "60% from shiv and 100% from weakening blast" it would help with a couple of different things. The change in the effect of the proc would allow cull to be used when at 0 TA, and the proc from weakening blast would allow for a cull to be used at medium range on a reasonably long cooldown. It would also clear the issue of proc dry spells you can get in a long PvE encounter.

[Adovir]

The old infusion was awful. It was a heal that used more resources than kolto injection, healed less, and only had a half a second less cast time. It was basically a worse version of surgical probe.

 

As for lethality changes I would like to see some changes with the fatality talent. If it effect could be changed to "makes your next cull free and not require TA" and it's chance to proc was changed to "60% from shiv and 100% from weakening blast" it would help with a couple of different things. The change in the effect of the proc would allow cull to be used when at 0 TA, and the proc from weakening blast would allow for a cull to be used at medium range on a reasonably long cooldown. It would also clear the issue of proc dry spells you can get in a long PvE encounter.

 

The old infusion was a 1.5 sec cast cost 20 eng and 1 TA, one second faster than injection because injection is a 2.5 second cast non talented. Before when I ran with 2 points into incivice action and 2 in endorphine rush I would flash bang inject, infuse, inject,infuse explosive probe adrenaline probe as I debilitate to shiv backstab. With the old infusion you could almost h2f especially if you got crits and you could easily do this but now you can't which is why I prefered the old version because as a healer too you could burst heal anyone up to near max with inject infuse surg probe nano tech