Developer Update: Introduction to Disciplines

[Max_Killjoy]

Speaking of ACs, to give an idea of how far in the wrong direction I think this Disciplines thing is -- I've always thought that I'd probably have left ACs out completely and given players more customization with all the powers and trees available within each class.

 

(And no, I've never worked it out in detail, because it really is a moot point. )

Edited October 13, 2014 by Max_Killjoy

[TACeMossie]

I decided to look at this a little more objectively:

 

Currently, there are quite a few hybrids out there. Ill list all the ones I can think of that work:

 

TANK BASED

AoE Reduc Shadow

AoE Reduc Vanguard

Vigi Tank

 

PvE BASED DPS

Lethal Engineer

Mad Lightning

Deadly Assault

 

HEALS (Solo/overgeared)

Mad Corruption

Corrupted Lightning

HoTs + DoTs

Heavily Armed bodyguard

 

Anything else is cause your so overgeared for the content its ridiculous, e.g. Jet Charge Pyro/Jet Charge AP, or the MOREDOTS sniper hybrid. I will admit to loving Goresmash though, mainly cause its hilarious to hit 10k smash's on 5 separate targets simultaneously, but other than that its got nothing.

 

Of these hybrids:

 

TANKING

AoE reduction tanks most likely wont need to hybrid anymore, as I highly suspect the AoE reduction will come as a utility.

Vigi Tank will stop existing, but Vigilance still works perfectly fine in tank stance (NEEDS MOAR STANCELOCKS!)

 

DPSING

Mad Lightning (and its variant of 2/16/28) are being incorporated into their respective trees: Lightning gets more AoE burst and significantly more AoE, while Madness gets more AoE pressure and the double speed force lightning. No word on the Sniper or Merc hybrids just yet, however the merc hybrid was mainly for an easier to manage rotation anyway. The Sniper hybrid will most likely come into play with 3.0's Engineering.

 

HEALING

They removed some good DPS capabilities in the hybrids, in exchange for using utilities for some things.

Heres some examples of how Sorcs are changed:

 

DARK CONCENTRATION: Its ability to proc off Crushing Darkness and Lightning strike means you aren't extremely penalised for DPSing instead of Healing in some areas.

CHAIN SHOCK: it got buffed, and allows you to use a fairly powerful ability every 6 seconds. Said ability has no cast time.

TEMPEST MASTERY: You won't be missing Chain Lighting/Death Field when your lightning storms are hitting almost as hard as them.

[Large variety of CC-based and mobility based talents] - And who said that you definately needed to spec hybrid to grab these utilities?

 

Also, this isn't WoW. A tank class can bring a DPS companion along to make it so it doesn't take 10 years to kill a mob 5 levels lower than you. Oh wait, you can kill a mob 5 levels higher than you in less than 3 minutes if you manage things right as a tank with a healer companion, so stop complaining about needing to hybrid to do damage!

 

HEALERS ARE MAKING IT EVEN WORSE TOO!

Lightning Strike works just FINE as a DPS option for sorc healers. Same with Shock. Crushing Darkness. Force Storm. And unlike tanks, your gear actually increases your DPS! WHO KNEW!

Edited October 13, 2014 by TACeMossie

[Ryuku-sama]

TANK BASED

AoE Reduc Shadow : Known hybrid for ages.

AoE Reduc Vanguard : Isn't that called Tactics in Ion Cell???

Vigi Tank : Not really good for tanking... Guardian Slash is rather important for Riposte and Blade Barricade. You lose Courage so your Blade Storm will always cost focus. All in all you lose a lot of threat generation and survivability for a Storm better CD, OS, a little more DPS and Commending Awe?? Not a good trade off. At least if you had take Shien and Unremitting and were stance dancing.

 

PvE BASED DPS

Lethal Engineer : Viable and documented for ages.

Mad Lightning : That's a good AoE build.

Deadly Assault : ??? Why giving up on your AP just for some extra Surge on Full Auto??? That's just stupid...

 

HEALS (Solo/overgeared)

Mad Corruption : Bad. Simply bad.

Corrupted Lightning : Pure ********. This build is only useful in solo ranked in a 4DPSvs4DPS match.

HoTs + DoTs : Useful. The DPS is lacking but the rolling TA are nice to Cull all day long.

Heavily Armed bodyguard : Simply lol. You lose Emergency Scan to gain an instant Healing Scan every 3 offensive GCD... Not that good. Especially considering how much issues merc have with heat in healing spec. Not using Emergency Scan will kill your heat even faster.

 

So basicly 4 viables hybrids. Vang and Shadow AoE tank. MadLigthning and EngiLeth DPS.

[TACeMossie]

TANK BASED

AoE Reduc Shadow : Known hybrid for ages.

AoE Reduc Vanguard : Isn't that called Tactics in Ion Cell???

Vigi Tank : Not really good for tanking... Guardian Slash is rather important for Riposte and Blade Barricade. You lose Courage so your Blade Storm will always cost focus. All in all you lose a lot of threat generation and survivability for a Storm better CD, OS, a little more DPS and Commending Awe?? Not a good trade off. At least if you had take Shien and Unremitting and were stance dancing.

 

PvE BASED DPS

Lethal Engineer : Viable and documented for ages.

Mad Lightning : That's a good AoE build.

Deadly Assault : ??? Why giving up on your AP just for some extra Surge on Full Auto??? That's just stupid...

 

HEALS (Solo/overgeared)

Mad Corruption : Bad. Simply bad.

Corrupted Lightning : Pure ********. This build is only useful in solo ranked in a 4DPSvs4DPS match.

HoTs + DoTs : Useful. The DPS is lacking but the rolling TA are nice to Cull all day long.

Heavily Armed bodyguard : Simply lol. You lose Emergency Scan to gain an instant Healing Scan every 3 offensive GCD... Not that good. Especially considering how much issues merc have with heat in healing spec. Not using Emergency Scan will kill your heat even faster.

 

So basicly 4 viables hybrids. Vang and Shadow AoE tank. MadLigthning and EngiLeth DPS.

 

Tactics in Ion Cell is slightly different - AoE Reduction VG grabs more tank-focused talents, e.g. the Ion Cell proc, while Ion Cell tactics is literally just stance swapping while specced tactics.

 

I dont know what you were looking at but the vigi hybrid I linked still has Courage - Blade storm will cost 1 focus still though. Its main use is for situations which no longer exist - fights where the Healers could use a little less pressure by you having an extra DCD alongside slightly less DTPS and slightly more DPS being done. It needs a ton of taunt fluff though to keep aggro, but on the bright side it can make joke fights quicker, and tough fights wont be as difficult to heal.

 

Also 9 second CD on blade storm instead of 12 seconds = Blade Barrier uptime increased by 33% (so instead of ~96 heals/second from it you get ~128), and the 3% DR loss from no guardian slash is made up for by a 4% DR increase from Commanding Awe.

Overall, you lose a small amount of elemental DR, the AoE taunt bubble, and a boatload of AoE threat, in exchange for more uptime on self heals, better K/E damage reduction, and a higher DPS output.

And people have used this spec in NiM raids before.

 

As for the Full Auto surge instead of AP for assault mandos, Im not the one who came up with it, it was from Kanter: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=666178

While there are issues there, I do still trust his word on these things. AP Isn't as necessary for mandos as it is for VGs, because a huge amount of their damage is from Charged Bolts instead of the DoTs.

I did screw up with it though and had +2% crit chance when I should have had a reduced CD on resource management cooldowns, but then again I get paranoid about alacrity...

 

And as I said, the last 4 are for situations where you are overgeared for the content or are doing dailies, though dont go bringing em into HM/NiM raids. Then again, I took a "Pyrotank" hybrid into a SM group and rolled over it, so...

Edited October 13, 2014 by TACeMossie

[agamemnon-]

Odd. I've never looked up a build on any website for any SWTOR character, and I never did it for any WoW characters before the Great Dumbing happened there either.

 

Between the fact that I don't care how other people are building their characters, and the fact that the skills all have tooltips that make it clear what they do, it's never been necessary.

 

Yea, I doubt that you've never even once glanced at the forums to at least compare what you had to others.

 

Even then, still doesn't change the fact that there wasn't any variety between builds anyways.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yea, I doubt that you've never even once glanced at the forums to at least compare what you had to others.

 

I love how the only answer that the pro-cookie-cutter crowd has to fall back on is "You're a liar".

[Pompeia]

Dear Bioware

 

Im very happy about the upcoming expansion with Revan, including what i did read on joystiq:

 

"Each player class will be given one unique class story mission as part of the storyline; these are entirely different from one another," Musco wrote.

 

The idea of the disciplines might be a good one too, but - Please dont remove well animated skills like you removed the spin kick from my marauder and sin. Please dont remove ravage, please dont remove the LS throw. If you have to remove any, pass the animation to the new or to a old not so well animated. The sin AOE spin also please dont remove - among others, you have several that are well worth keeping even if you make changes in the name or effect of the skills.

 

Thank you.

[PBoba]

The only "customisation" people are losing is the funny hybrids you can make to do dailies. Like a pyro merc with tracer missile for the armour debuff, or a lethal lacerater, or lacerating medic, operative or something. Nothing you can actually take into any endgame situation.

 

I will miss playing around with these, but really the trade off for making three strong viable specs for each AC - 24 strong specs overall, no gimps because they're afraid of unleashing the countless permutations of talent tree hybrids they can't account for? That is priceless. If that idea upsets you, I don't know what to say to you. GG.

 

Wall of crazy, tho, once they have their disciplines worn in, they could introduce a "dabbler" button that lets you go only a few a steps up 2 or three disciplines so you get a fun mix of the early powers. Maybe they'll have to debuff some of the effects (like reverse expertise), but a "dabbler" button would let people play gimpy hybrids for their dailies while being locked out of gf and warzones (definitely, not fair on your teammates) and instanced content (assuming no debuff), etc.

Edited October 13, 2014 by PBoba

[Max_Killjoy]

The only "customisation" people are losing is the funny hybrids you can make to do dailies. Like a pyro merc with tracer missile for the armour debuff, or a lethal lacerater, or lacerating medic, operative or something. Nothing you can actually take into any endgame situation.

 

I will miss playing around with these, but really the trade off for making three strong viable specs for each AC - 24 strong specs overall, no gimps because they're afraid of unleashing the countless permutations of talent tree hybrids they can't account for? That is priceless. If that idea upsets you, I don't know what to say to you. GG.

 

Wall of crazy, tho, once they have their disciplines worn in, they could introduce a "dabbler" button that lets you go only a few a steps up 2 or three disciplines so you get a fun mix of the early powers. Maybe they'll have to debuff some of the effects (like reverse expertise), but a "dabbler" button would let people play gimpy hybrids for their dailies while being locked out of gf and warzones (definitely, not fair on your teammates) and instanced content (assuming no debuff), etc.

 

Some of the dailies are instanced, however.

 

If one never went into end-game situations, the builds were never a problem for any other player in the game, any issues with the builds were totally for the player to deal with. Even if a hybrid was OP, if the player never took it into PvP, no one else should care.

 

What's happening here is what happens so often -- because some people couldn't handle something, it's being taken away from everyone, instead of finding a way to limit the abuse while leaving the people who were responsible about it alone and free to continue using it.

[azudelphi]

Some of the dailies are instanced, however.

 

If one never went into end-game situations, the builds were never a problem for any other player in the game, any issues with the builds were totally for the player to deal with. Even if a hybrid was OP, if the player never took it into PvP, no one else should care.

 

What's happening here is what happens so often -- because some people couldn't handle something, it's being taken away from everyone, instead of finding a way to limit the abuse while leaving the people who were responsible about it alone and free to continue using it.

 

An OP build in PVE is actually a problem if it is enough of a deviation from the norm that it becomes a favored build. A group consisting of 7 OP hybrids and 1 sentinel has 0 group diversity.

 

A group consisting of 8 roughly equal builds with certain nuances however is the ideal. In a way, the question is... why should a purebuild be punished for not gaming the system?

[Max_Killjoy]

An OP build in PVE is actually a problem if it is enough of a deviation from the norm that it becomes a favored build. A group consisting of 7 OP hybrids and 1 sentinel has 0 group diversity.

 

A group consisting of 8 roughly equal builds with certain nuances however is the ideal. In a way, the question is... why should a purebuild be punished for not gaming the system?

 

They shouldn't, any more than someone with a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none build should be punished.

 

FotM chasers and min-maxers shouldn't be rewarded, either -- and that's true whether they're maxing out the latest advantaged purebuild, or trying to tweak out the latest hybrid they found online.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Max_Killjoy

[azudelphi]

They shouldn't, any more than someone with a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none build should be punished.

 

FotM chasers and min-maxers shouldn't be rewarded, either -- and that's true whether they're maxing out the latest advantaged purebuild, or trying to tweak out the latest hybrid they found online.

 

A Jack-of-all-trades and a Master-of-none by definition punishes themselves. There is no gaming the system there, you just willfully choose to not be ideal for whatever preference drives that choice. And yes, your strange Corruption / Madness build is not even ideal for solo'ing. You have a preference for it, fine... but not ideal (though such is your choice).

 

While you may not like end-game operations or PVP, you do have to accept that there are people who:

A) Like to engage with others

B) Like to take on the game's tougher challenges

C) Like to win

D) Do what it takes to win

 

As such, theory-crafting and teamwork aren't futile goals; working as a group to execute and achieve is a good thing. Min-max'ing are a means to an end of victory. Call it a "rat race" all you want... I stand by the fact that raiding isn't about the gear, it's about overcoming a challenge.

 

And a FotM / OP Hybrid build creates an unnecessary strain on those objectives by pressuring players to a particular build for success. You can say whatever negatives about it you want, but if class A underperforms class B underperforms Hybrid C in a particular scenario, you will see more people using Hybrid C over time. And that's why the Discipline system (in theory) should remove the pesky hybrids and change the paradigm back to:

 

Discipline A is within general tolerance of Discipline B is within general tolerance of Discipline C.

 

Were this a sandbox game, I'd be more onboard with the notion of freedom and choice. But this is about controlled outputs and that's absolutely a good thing.

[RODRIGJ]

I leaved wow when they decided to remove skills tree and choose for us the way we have to specs...

 

Looks like SWTOR is following this way : time to cancel my 2 subscriptions!

 

Thanks to the devs to give me incentive to do that!

 

 

JPR out!

[Max_Killjoy]

A Jack-of-all-trades and a Master-of-none by definition punishes themselves. There is no gaming the system there, you just willfully choose to not be ideal for whatever preference drives that choice. And yes, your strange Corruption / Madness build is not even ideal for solo'ing. You have a preference for it, fine... but not ideal (though such is your choice).

 

You keep saying that, and yet it really works for me, blowing through the most difficult solo content as fast as, and dealing with 2 or 4 man heroics as well as, anyone else seems to.

 

 

While you may not like end-game operations or PVP, you do have to accept that there are people who:

A) Like to engage with others

B) Like to take on the game's tougher challenges

C) Like to win

D) Do what it takes to win

 

It's good that someone enjoys that stuff. I don't begrudge them a bit, except when the fact that I don't go in for that becomes a point of disdain or dismissal.

 

As such, theory-crafting and teamwork aren't futile goals; working as a group to execute and achieve is a good thing. Min-max'ing are a means to an end of victory. Call it a "rat race" all you want... I stand by the fact that raiding isn't about the gear, it's about overcoming a challenge.

 

You've had better experiences then I have, then. In other games, when I've tried to get into it, whatever was said about challenges and mastery and teamwork, it really came down to the gear cycle that I mentioned elsewhere and the expectation that raiding is your life, before anything other than maybe your actual job.

 

And a FotM / OP Hybrid build creates an unnecessary strain on those objectives by pressuring players to a particular build for success. You can say whatever negatives about it you want, but if class A underperforms class B underperforms Hybrid C in a particular scenario, you will see more people using Hybrid C over time. And that's why the Discipline system (in theory) should remove the pesky hybrids and change the paradigm back to:

 

Discipline A is within general tolerance of Discipline B is within general tolerance of Discipline C.

 

Were this a sandbox game, I'd be more onboard with the notion of freedom and choice. But this is about controlled outputs and that's absolutely a good thing.

 

And I still say that there has to be a way to give both sides what they want, instead of punishing one side for the abuse of the system by a relatively small number of players, in order to give the other side more of what they want.

 

tl,dr: this is why we can't have nice things

[azudelphi]

You keep saying that, and yet it really works for me, blowing through the most difficult solo content as fast as, and dealing with 2 or 4 man heroics as well as, anyone else seems to.

 

This game doesn't have difficult solo content... the "toughest" solo content in the game is probably the Heroic 2 on Oricon. With Heroic Moment cycled properly even that is nothing compared to an average Hard Mode operation or Ranked Warzone.

 

And I still say that there has to be a way to give both sides what they want, instead of punishing one side for the abuse of the system by a relatively small number of players, in order to give the other side more of what they want.

 

There is... but it requires a lot more $$$.

Edited October 13, 2014 by azudelphi

[Max_Killjoy]

This game doesn't have difficult solo content... the "toughest" solo content in the game is probably the Heroic 2 on Oricon. With Heroic Moment cycled properly even that is nothing compared to an average Hard Mode operation or Ranked Warzone.

 

I've noticed that.

 

But if we're using "how well does this character handle solo content" as a scale, then the blended-build Sorc in question seems to handle it just as well as various other characters.

 

(Someone said a pure madness build would do the same content 1000 times better, which I don't think can be taken as a literal statement, or I'd be doing Oricon in a matter of seconds... :Biggrin: )

[azudelphi]

I've noticed that.

 

But if we're using "how well does this character handle solo content" as a scale, then the blended-build Sorc in question seems to handle it just as well as various other characters.

 

(Someone said a pure madness build would do the same content 1000 times better, which I don't think can be taken as a literal statement, or I'd be doing Oricon in a matter of seconds... :Biggrin: )

 

Madness is pretty powerful at the moment. The multiplier may not be accurate, but I think it would be accurate to say that the survivability you would lose by ditching the Corruption skill points would boost your dps significantly; to the point where the reduction in TTK would offset the reduction in TTD by far.

[Agonus]

So much this. It's not dumbing down because the only part it's changing - selecting talents - was already easy. The hard part, mastering your spec's rotation and maximizing your performance in actual gameplay, has not changed at all. I could look at a spec and figure out the core build and the essence of the rotation (if not its actual execution) in a couple minutes. A few seconds to identify the active abilities I need to grab, half a minute to identify all of the passive talents that were actually useful to the spec and that I wanted to get, then a few more seconds to figure out which of the other abilities I would be forced to take just to progress up the skill tree. The only thing that can actually take longer is figuring out the handful of talents from the other trees that are the most useful, which sometimes requires parsing on a dummy. At the same time, I would be figuring out the basics of the rotation - "use this ability to proc the buff for that ability", "use these abilities on cooldown", etc. That part is trivial. The hard part comes after - using the spec in combat and figuring out how to maximize your own performance.

 

Now, selecting skills will actually be harder, since there are actually difficult choices in the utility skills. Looking at the Sorceror utility section, I see a hell of a lot more than 7 abilities I would like to pick up. Looking at Tier 1, it looks like all 7 abilities would be nice to have for PVP, while 5/7 would be useful in PVE (the Stun-related stuff is useless for boss fights). In Tier 2, it looks like 6/7 are useful for PVP DPS, although the 7th is all but mandatory for healers, although only 3/7 look useful for PVE dps and 4/7 for PVE heals. Tier 3 looks about the same as Tier 2. So for PVP, that means you have to choose 7 out of about 19 useful abilities, and you have to choose 7 out of about 12-13 abilities. There are going to be some tough choices that you have to actually think about, and they will produce tangible differences from player to player. If one player decides "certain abilities can be cast while moving" is worth a utility point, while another decides to invest that point in "Affliction slows the target by 30%", they will end up with noticeably different playstyles.

 

I don't care about getting the best numbers and maximizing my performance. Going on some uber long raid to get some enhancement that will provide an extra .05% DPS means nothing to me.

 

I'm one of those wacky players that stays on Ebon Hawk and Bergeron because they're RP servers. NOT because they have high populations.

 

I've been enjoying myself in story and setting immersion and RPing with others. And now my experience is being changed to match YOUR playstyle.

[PBoba]

Some of the dailies are instanced, however.

 

If one never went into end-game situations, the builds were never a problem for any other player in the game, any issues with the builds were totally for the player to deal with. Even if a hybrid was OP, if the player never took it into PvP, no one else should care.

 

What's happening here is what happens so often -- because some people couldn't handle something, it's being taken away from everyone, instead of finding a way to limit the abuse while leaving the people who were responsible about it alone and free to continue using it.

 

Instances are a technical point, my example. Really its gf, warzones, etc. Did you read the rest of my post? What is happening here is that there is a real problem and yes, removing hybrids is a consequence. Not just for abuse, but to make the 24 specs as good as they can be.

[Ryuku-sama]

I don't care about getting the best numbers and maximizing my performance. Going on some uber long raid to get some enhancement that will provide an extra .05% DPS means nothing to me.

 

I'm one of those wacky players that stays on Ebon Hawk and Bergeron because they're RP servers. NOT because they have high populations.

 

I've been enjoying myself in story and setting immersion and RPing with others. And now my experience is being changed to match YOUR playstyle.

 

Ok... I'm totally lost here. How are the mechanics of the game affecting your RP??????? Because if they are.. well I'm sorry to tell you but Idon,t wanna RP with you.

[keimox]

I've noticed that.

 

But if we're using "how well does this character handle solo content" as a scale, then the blended-build Sorc in question seems to handle it just as well as various other characters.

 

(Someone said a pure madness build would do the same content 1000 times better, which I don't think can be taken as a literal statement, or I'd be doing Oricon in a matter of seconds... :Biggrin: )

 

Its fine if u don't like group content but the thing is that this is a multiplayer game. Specs are balanced for group and pvp content, not for your lonely wolf solo-thingy. And when devs have said many times why they don't like hybrids and why they are going to this new system, its pointless to you to keep arguing against it.

[Agonus]

Ok... I'm totally lost here. How are the mechanics of the game affecting your RP??????? Because if they are.. well I'm sorry to tell you but Idon,t wanna RP with you.

 

I never said they do. I was explaining why I'm here for the people who obsess about the endgame and PVP.

 

There are, however, a lot of mechanics attached to the rather extensive class storylines in the 1-50 game.

[andjecko]

I hope that this does in fact add more depth to the game. The sole reason why I became a sub to this and left WoW behind is that SWTOR actually makes me think about how to build a good toon. WoW, I could fly by the seat of my pants and still end up with good results. Also, I have an idea to add to the game. Speeder racing!!! Check out my thread in the forums.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ok... I'm totally lost here. How are the mechanics of the game affecting your RP??????? Because if they are.. well I'm sorry to tell you but Idon,t wanna RP with you.

 

I was thinking about this during the drive home.

 

Sometimes that "wonky, unoptimized" build also fits the character as envisioned by the player.

 

I guess I suffer from coming to the RPG through a far older and diversified path, that didn't start out involving computers at all.

[Ryuku-sama]

I was thinking about this during the drive home.

 

Sometimes that "wonky, unoptimized" build also fits the character as envisioned by the player.

 

I guess I suffer from coming to the RPG through a far older and diversified path, that didn't start out involving computers at all.

 

I guess I can understand that point. I may be young, but I played old style RPG quite a lot before studies and work began to take up so much of my time. But these games also taught me to adapt. Sure my character isn't like I want it to be because I do like it to be optimized, but it doesn't actually change much. I can still RP it the way I want despite it not being exactly what I want in PvE and PvP. Anyway you don't really RP in PvP and PvE.... Sure by looking at this that way, you lose customization. But a MMO never was a place to look if you want customization greater than what you can actually find in DnD 4.0 for example (which sucks balls as a RPG IMHO). If you want that kind of customization, you would be better of just going for another game...

 

I guess you did act as a GM a few time... As a GM, what are you trying to do? First and foremost tell a good story. Secondly, face your players' character to interresting challenges. For this to be possible, you want them all balanced. If one of the PC is massively more powerful than the others, Giving your group challenges become a nightmare since you can't give challenge balanced on the most powerful without having most of the others feel left out, and cannot give challenge balanced on the lowest without having the more powerful plowing through them and ending in the same situation. That's what devs are trying to do too.

But difference is as a GM, your players are few and normally friends. You can talk them of choice they could make that would unbalance everything or come up with a reason to not make it works. Devs cannot do this as easily.