Game Update 3.0 Class Changes: Commando + Mercenary

[Faardor]

So we have an energy counter but what about a >percentage< based energy counter? (ala mercs) I honestly find that much more useful than a energy counter, and its still the main reason why merc dps parses for more than commando DPS.

[Xarcy]

Bioware should be pruning back class abilities not adding more, button bloat is beyond stupid now. Take a leaf from Blizzard's book on class design and cut out abilities as they know a thing or two about running a successful MMO.

[Faardor]

Bioware should be pruning back class abilities not adding more, button bloat is beyond stupid now. Take a leaf from Blizzard's book on class design and cut out abilities as they know a thing or two about running a successful MMO.

Eh, TOR isn't quite there yet aside from pressing a -few- extra buttons in PVP there really isn't much to press in most rotations beyond maybe 4-6 buttons. SOME are pressed situationally (defensive / offensive cooldowns for example) but thats it.

[Ryuku-sama]

They do

 

NDA Kwerty... NDA

[TACeMossie]

NDA Kwerty... NDA

 

/disappears into the night

 

I didn't say nothing!

 

Anyway, The fix was stated as a Bug fix. Since when was fixing a bug counted as new info?

Edited November 7, 2014 by TACeMossie

[Kylawog]

How are you gonna nerf the weakest PVP healing class? We have no "O~Sh*t " button like sages or scoundrels....our only real thing that was nice was hammer-shot, the ability to let us heal on the move, while charging up our support cells and saving our energy, this is BS...NERF NERF NERF!!! Only way to be fair is to nerf Sage/sorc bubble or Scoundrel/ops vanish.....bullsh*t!

[Styxx]

So, your answer to "crazy rotations" is ability bloatware™ and even crazier rotations, by having 2 new skills, while not gaining anything, anyway, as your "lvl 60 will be the equivalent of lvl 55`s DPS".

 

You sure make a lot of sense there.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Styxx

[treemu]

How are you gonna nerf the weakest PVP healing class? We have no "O~Sh*t " button like sages or scoundrels....our only real thing that was nice was hammer-shot, the ability to let us heal on the move, while charging up our support cells and saving our energy, this is BS...NERF NERF NERF!!! Only way to be fair is to nerf Sage/sorc bubble or Scoundrel/ops vanish.....bullsh*t!

 

Before QQing, please read the blog post a little better then none at all.

 

Supercharge: Activating Hammer Shot, Med Shot, Charged Bolts, Grav Round, or Medical Probe generates a stack of Supercharge.

 

They didn't explain what it is, but from the looks of it it's a Hammer Shot that can only heal. So you DO get to heal while on the move. Stack that with Forced March and you can cast Successive Treatment on the move as well.

 

And yes, Mandos don't have an easy oh**** button. Should they? Probably. Should they because Scoundrels and Sages have one? No.

And you already have the best single target heal in the game with Trauma Probe.

 

It's not BW's job to spoonfeed you to be the best you can be. You need to go out there, learn your class, learn cooldowns, learn positioning, learn teamplay and so on. If it's too difficult for you, then you won't be missed.

[thetexascuban]

Yes! Finally commandos are updated to match out other classes. It's just sad how commandos have been traditionally overpowered by pretty much any other class due to the static nature of their dps/heals. This is true especially on pvp. I even gave up pvp with my commando (which is my main) because of how weak they were and because of how easy of a target they were. A new channeled healing ability brings commandos closer to sages and sorcerers, which I think is good. Also the fact that kolto bomb and medical probe will be suppressed from dps-aligned commandos is quite useful for pvp, since bacta fusion and med shot should not be as easily visible by enemy players (thus making them less susceptible to being no. 1 target); that's also a plus. Kolto bomb now heals 8 targets, thumbs up on that. AND most importantly: FORCED MARCH!!!!!! ---> that's what commandos were missing since they were designed (MOBILITY) Great job Bioware, all these commando fans here surely appreciate it.

If you ask me, I'd say these changes surely bring healing commandos closer to sages/sorcerers while keeping a combat medic nature. Besides, the fact that full auto and grav round (among others) wont necesarily have to be painfully channeled/activated at all times will be a big change that will make commandos be much more fun and competitive, especially on pvp.

Once again, thank you for this Bioware

[ViolentAngel]

Welcome to the first of our Disciplines blogs! For the month of November, we will be covering all of the Advanced Classes.

 

Read More

 

Hi, I'm an Arsenal player.

 

I'm unhappy with these "most drastic changes".

 

Changes to Heat Management. afaik, I have one of the most plentiful resources in the game.

 

Advanced Targeting. I already had that.

 

Upgraded Arsenal. I had both of those too.

 

Supercharge. Woot! 1% more damage and MORE Tracer Missile spam to stack!

 

Supercharged Gas. I already had lots of armour penetration and lots of free alacrity.

 

I've lost Kolto Missile and gained Emergency Scan? So now I have to drop my target in order to off-heal...

 

Blazing Bolts. Can anyone explain the difference between Blazing Bolts and Unload? Or between Rail Shot and Mag Shot for that matter?

 

Priming Shot is garbage. I currently have three self-buffs that deal with interrupts. While I'm using a GCD to cast Priming Shot, I'm not gaining any Tracer Stacks. Being able to move-and-shoot has never been an issue. It doesn't solve the fact that it's common knowledge that Mercs have the least effective DCDs in the game. Everyone knows that if you gank the merc, it's the easiest kill in the game.

 

You can argue about that all day long, but you can't deny that it's common knowledge.

 

For Christmas sake, what I really really want is to move and fire while using Death from Above. I'm sure Troopers would be happy with jet-packing up onto platforms too. Maybe separate the flying and the nuke into two separate abilities...

 

 

[SilverWF]

Absolutely unneeded changes again. What a reason to add just a copy of Unload with the same cooldown?

 

RETURN HIDDEN STRIKE BACK!

[Ershiin]

Just one question... What is the logic in breaking up an existing ability into two?

Wouldnt it be easier just to have the current healing from rapid shots apply regardless of cylinder?

Seems to me its just going to clutter up the quickbar for absolutely no god damn reason.

[AMightyKnight]

Hi, I'm an Arsenal player.

 

I'm unhappy with these "most drastic changes".

 

Changes to Heat Management. afaik, I have one of the most plentiful resources in the game.

No actually, outside PvP Arsenal has a very tight ammo management. One wrong attack could effectively kill your sustained dps in PvE, this is a much needed and huge improvement for us.

 

Advanced Targeting. I already had that.

Yes, its strange they put that into the blog post. Its slightly different from the old Advanced Targeting (minus the Accuracy) but i suspect there will be many changes to our passive abilities.

 

Upgraded Arsenal. I had both of those too.

Yes but this has changed as well. As say said in the blog post, we have three additional passives, giving us all the new supercharged stuff.

 

Supercharge. Woot! 1% more damage and MORE Tracer Missile spam to stack!

Woot! More sustained DPS vor PvErs! Plus another offensive cd and a raidwide buff. I like it.

 

Supercharged Gas. I already had lots of armour penetration and lots of free alacrity.

You can never have enough armor pen an alacrity (in 3.0).

 

I've lost Kolto Missile and gained Emergency Scan? So now I have to drop my target in order to off-heal...

I dont care either way, i'm a dps class, my job is first and foremost to kill stuff, saving the raid because healers isnt.

 

Blazing Bolts. Can anyone explain the difference between Blazing Bolts and Unload? Or between Rail Shot and Mag Shot for that matter?

Blazing Bolts and Mag Shots are replacement attacks. They are presumably better suited for the relevant Advanced Class.

 

Priming Shot is garbage. I currently have three self-buffs that deal with interrupts. While I'm using a GCD to cast Priming Shot, I'm not gaining any Tracer Stacks. Being able to move-and-shoot has never been an issue. It doesn't solve the fact that it's common knowledge that Mercs have the least effective DCDs in the game. Everyone knows that if you gank the merc, it's the easiest kill in the game.

What makes you think Priming Shot is about Interrupts in PvP?

[Clarian]

Expanding the Supercharge concept to all Commando disciplines sounds cool.

 

But splitting Hammer Shot into two separate powers just seems inconvenient. I always thought it was very handy being able to have both the attack and heal functions on the same button.

 

If anything, more dual-function powers for healers in general would be neat.

[Nortumberland]

Hmm... so now CM looses hammer shot healing effect... damn it was great to put HM on a mouse button and use it for both healing and damaging. Now need another hotkey Successive Treatment sounds like same old hammer shot healing - green beam channeled on the move and building stacks (but now with cost?!)... why make it 2 different abilities? Also, what's with armor buff from SCC? Didn't see any words on it? Can't say I like the change of the SCC - it looks like WOW's idiotic defence mechanic where u had to endlessly build and dump resource aka SCC - we build 10 stacks we dump 10 stacks or what? Cos 1% healing with 10 stacks it laughable. There was nothing wrong with CM healing - it had troubles with PVP due to being shut down easily. Can't see any change that can prevent it that much though Edited November 7, 2014 by Nortumberland

[Ryuku-sama]

Hmm... so now CM looses hammer shot healing effect... damn it was great to put HM on a mouse button and use it for both healing and damaging. Now need another hotkey Successive Treatment sounds like same old hammer shot healing - green beam channeled on the move and building stacks (but now with cost?!)... why make it 2 different abilities? Also, what's with armor buff from SCC? Didn't see any words on it? Can't say I like the change of the SCC - it looks like WOW's idiotic defence mechanic where u had to endlessly build and dump resource aka SCC - we build 10 stacks we dump 10 stacks or what? Cos 1% healing with 10 stacks it laughable. There was nothing wrong with CM healing - it had troubles with PVP due to being shut down easily. Can't see any change that can prevent it that much though

 

Eh?? HS heal is now Med Shot. Succesive Treatment is something else completely.....

[Drake_Hound]

*** I lost kolto missile and rapid scan.

 

Good thing am not playing this game anymore, but let face it instead of advancing into more difficult learning curves.

Discipline is starting to seem like blizzard lets simplify things.

And what about we won't lose any abilities, we only gain passive choices instead of active choices.

Sorry was waiting to see how much it would affect my main class.

 

But I guess a good thing, I didn't bother to invest more time into this game.

Even with the xp bonus from class quest.

And honestly don't see any point in investing more time, same old simplify choices and streamline the crap for dummies.

[Nortumberland]

Eh?? HS heal is now Med Shot. Succesive Treatment is something else completely.....

 

My mistake Complaints on SC is no longer active but everything else is Main point - I liked to use SCC as a cooldown - you put shield and get bonus healing. Now it's a mandority to brainlessly spam it on CD to gain bonus healing and regen ammo.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Nortumberland

[Drake_Hound]

I think the more I look at it, the more this crap stinks.

 

sorc hybrid playstyle of forklightning (who doesn't want to feel like the emperor, or palpatine)

Gone. Forced into mindless gaming mechanics of dots.

 

Operatives my healer operative becomes unkillable ! What you mean they can't kill me without hacks.

Now they definetly can't kill operative without hacking!

 

My merc/commando becomes one trick pony! Time out!

There is a reason three healing classes are diverse, Sorc/Sage is AOE heals, Operative/Scoundrel is Strongest HOT (heal over time)

And Merc Commando had strongest single target Heals. Now base I see commando group healing buffed.

That is not what it is was meant to do.

 

Now kolto missile was given so commando and mercs none heal spec could offheal on the moving fights, sacrifice of some dps.

But a advance otion for the more skilled players or veterans.

How can sorc justify there healing spot? When you bring commando/merc for all !

 

Now there is a reason commando and merc are popular with the longtime players.

Cause it is a hybrid class, same as the operative but unlike the operative (who is the druid class of swtor)

We are tincans that die really easy in pvp. So that remains untouched.

Fair enough for pvp, but my new abilities are crap, a instant powershot with cooldown for a instant tracer missile?

(yeah don't have to wait for stream to know what you guys did)

And a bug free unload version that probaly will be buffed by the talent tree.

 

Fine was expecting tradeoff of rapid scan for emergency scan. But removing kolto missile/bomb.

That sounds like lazy work, when you don't understand the 3 primary roles of the 3 healing classes.

 

Somebody went over the numbers and just eh overdid the merc / commando healer buffing.

When we need to be buffed in one more additional cooldown/survival option for all three spec.

Cause more vets play this class cause of versatility, same as sorc hybrid excist cause people wanted a different playstyle. (not everybody is a min maxer)

 

I only see discipline as streamlining the workload for dev, and simplifiying it for the dumies.

With a problem that dummies find pressing 4 buttons hard! 4 buttons is too much!

Honestly we play computer games cause we like to press buttons, we like to find combo's that work.

You think street fighter/mortal combat became famous for button bashing?

No it was executing right combination of buttons at the right time.

 

Now I love the discipline system but the execution is so flawed, instead of real choices.

We are being shoe horned into a predesigned "passive" choice, if something comes up that exceed DEV opnion or playstyle. It can easily be fixed.

 

OK fair enough from developers point of view. But how about just make one button game then.

saves even more workload, sorry I do not see improvement in my main class.

Infact I only see a combination that was available with SCC that was taken away from players.

Cause of preloaded free heat or energy damage, even that option is gone cause SCC has been changed to not provide buffs or free damage.

 

So overall I only see decrease in playstyle and combination, and streamlining while walking over other healers domain.

[mandoforlife]

All these changes look pretty good. Having mained a Merc since launch, this is the info I've been looking forward to the most.

 

By the sound of it, Mag Shot will be replacing Rail Shot for Pyro (don't remember the new name.) I can't say I like this. Rail Shot is by far one of the coolest abilities in the game. I sure hope the animation and sound effect for Mag Shot is one hell of a gem.

[voigt]

Serrated Bolt: Fires special serrated blaster bolts at the target that deal weapon damage and cause the target to bleed for internal damage over 15 seconds.

 

What the hell is a serrated blaster bolt? how do you make jagged energy... this just makes no sense to me

[Ashuranrx]

That trooper armor looks really nice in the picture. Is that a new skin in the expansion?

[DomBah]

Finally we can discuss the "changes" a bit.

If i compare this changes with the ones for DPS sorc / sage, vanguard / powertech, scoundrel / operative, it seems like bioware did these only because they have to change something.

 

Summary:

The commando gets a little bit easier ammo / heat managment]. I never needed this.

Arsenal / Gunnery has currently no changes, except one casting free tracer missile / grav round every 18s sec., even through the new utility tree, it is only possible to replicate the old spec, not able to putting the few new things without sacrifice important old, like full-auto / unload (replacement) mobilty or reduced damage under stun.

DPS Sorc, powertech and operative(i can not jugde for the other classes) gets changes that will buff the pvp survivability to a higher level (and for powertech he gets some other really nice stuff too).

 

Some words on the changes, if allowed:

1) The remove of self healing is something that happens in different ways for all 3 healer / dps classes.

But commando will suffer most of it, it direcly reduce the ability to kite, something outside ranked is very important, in regular the off-healing for team mates with kolto bomb and for the melee's through medical probe, is a good team utility, that can change the game from loose to win.

Example for off-healing:

http://l85i.imgup.net/swtor2014-d5e9.jpg

So for me and my playstyle it's a huge nerf and if i compare this with (madness) sorc i don't see where this is balanced, to compare this with scoundrel, in my opinion through the buffs in survivability and the fact that DPS part rarely us his big healing and get a heal over time instead, the commando is most affected from the changes.

 

2) The new Supercharge and Supercharged Cell for DPS looks like pseudo buffs, because of course the damage is calculated, that means for the same amount of damage we make now live, we have to use with 3.0 additional supercharge and Supercharged Cell.

 

3) The little more mobility we get, is surely not a bad thing, but i doubt that this compensate the direct nerf for DPS spec (healing) on this class and the buffs the others classes gets.

 

4) Yeah, pushback is back. Gladly the sorc has the pvp madness healing DPS spec which is not affected. Sniperslinger was never affected from that, so one of the 3 range class, the commando, has something unique.

 

Conservative estimate:

It seems for me that the DPS spec is more designed now then ever since 2.0, to be dependent on other team mates, to protect him, which in solo ranked and regular will not be the case.

Overall no substantially changes for ranked situations too, iam curious of the performing in pvp for this class.

If the devs not adjusting the utility system, i fear that 3.0 DPS mercomando will be in pre 2.0 state.

Edited November 8, 2014 by DomBah
After stream i removed kolto bomb issue

[Halinalle]

That trooper armor looks really nice in the picture. Is that a new skin in the expansion?

 

It looks like Stalwart Protector with Dread Guard (63) helmet.

[Adovir]

When is the stream?

 

Oh wait nvm it says on the twitch page, 4PM cst

Edited November 7, 2014 by Adovir