Is Ion railgun energy lockout back to 100%?

[Kuciwalker]

I just got hit with an ion railgun with the energy lockout and it didn't look like my engine power was regenerating at all until the debuff fell off. The experiment was not repeated so I don't want to trust just a single observation that could've been mistaken. Edited January 8, 2015 by Kuciwalker

[Ryuku-sama]

I just got hit with an ion railgun with the energy lockout and it didn't look like my engine power was regenerating at all until the debuff fell off. The experiment was not repeated so I don't want to trust just a single observation that could've been mistaken.

 

Yes.. Ion Rail is back to its old setting.

[ToMyMa]

I just got hit with an ion railgun with the energy lockout and it didn't look like my engine power was regenerating at all until the debuff fell off. The experiment was not repeated so I don't want to trust just a single observation that could've been mistaken.

 

I experienced the same thing today, so it's not a one time occurence.

[SammyGStatus]

Someone mentioned this, I think it was Tom who mentioned that Drake said something. Phone tag, mumble style. Curious to know how you discovered this as you don't GSF with us anymore

 

That said, I still like using slow, especially vs scouts that have pods. The energy stoppage 100% is pretty brutal though and should get fixed... Unless this is how they intend for us to fight scouts which is totally fair and justified to return us to a slightly modified pre-2.6

Edited January 8, 2015 by SammyGStatus

[Ardaneb]

Unless this is how they intend for us to fight scouts which is totally fair and justified to return us to a slightly modified pre-2.6

 

Now we need a programming bug to buff strike fighters. Boom. Balance. Keep your fingers crossed.

[Delta_V]

Yep, it appears BioWare still has not figured out what the phrase "version control" means. Add yet another instance of a patch accidentally reverting something to an old state. I noticed this yesterday as well when the Imps decided to use 7 gunships in an 8v8. Got hit by multiple Ion Rails and found my self sitting at 0% energy and unable to regen.

[Fractalsponge]

I now feel very good about my decision to swap back to regen lock a week ago

[Altheran]

No wonder that my results my Quarrel yesterday were outrageous...

 

Now we need a programming bug to buff strike fighters. Boom. Balance. Keep your fingers crossed.

Impossible. By design.

[tunewalker]

No wonder that my results my Quarrel yesterday were outrageous...

 

 

Impossible. By design.

 

Sad fact is, this guy is mostly right.

 

There is a way, but it wont ever happen, and no one will actually ACCEPT it as a way.

[Ryuku-sama]

Sad fact is, this guy is mostly right.

 

There is a way, but it wont ever happen, and no one will actually ACCEPT it as a way.

 

Oh?? Do tell us.

[Altheran]

Oh S#!^ ! Seems like I dropped a bomb.

[Kuciwalker]

Someone mentioned this, I think it was Tom who mentioned that Drake said something. Phone tag, mumble style. Curious to know how you discovered this as you don't GSF with us anymore

 

As I said in OP, I discovered it through actually getting hit by an ion railgun (I know, I know, not something I should allow to happen but other than Tsuki there aren't any gunships worth being afraid of on JM (for the record I got away fine)).

 

And I'll come back when I have a bit more time I'm just doing the daily on my JM imp toon to finally complete all the ships.

 

That said, I still like using slow, especially vs scouts that have pods. The energy stoppage 100% is pretty brutal though and should get fixed... Unless this is how they intend for us to fight scouts which is totally fair and justified to return us to a slightly modified pre-2.6

 

At no regen the lockout is just straight up better than slow, even vs scouts with pods.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Kuciwalker

[Kuciwalker]

I think for now I'm going to stick with slow because against the current JM population I don't *need* the lockout and it just seems sort of cruel...

[Delta_V]

As I said in OP, I discovered it through actually getting hit by an ion railgun (I know, I know, not something I should allow to happen but other than Tsuki there aren't any gunships worth being afraid of on JM (for the record I got away fine)).

 

And I'll come back when I have a bit more time I'm just doing the daily on my JM imp toon to finally complete all the ships.

 

 

 

At no regen the lockout is just straight up better than slow, even vs scouts with pods.

 

 

This. Even with a 50% slow, a Scout's boost is reasonably fast. But preventing them from boosting at all leaves them dead in the water. Just got out of another TDM against 50% gunships, and the Ion Railgun spam was painful. Luckily I had just switched from BLCs + Clusters to Quads'n'Pods, because the extra range was vital in that environment.

[Camelpockets]

(Still patiently waits to see if Bioware will actually care for GSF again.)

[Verain]

THIS HAS BEEN LIKE THIS FOR MONTHS

 

The change isn't "Ion railgun energy lockout back to 100%".

 

The change is that the Ion Railgun Tier 5 talents now behave in their prepatch state- that is to say, the snare is 40% for 6 seconds, not55% for 12 seconds, and the energy lockout is 100% for 6 seconds, not 65% for 6 seconds.

 

 

This is when we were sure the snare had an issue (October):

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=768091

 

Here's me pointing out both of those bugs when 3.0 hit, as part of the bug roundup:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7852176

 

Salient quote:

"At some point between September and October, the Ion Railgun change went in- this seemed to revert an earlier patch of Ion Railgun. The original behavior of Ion Railgun T5 talents were "slow by 40% for 6 seconds" or "stop energy regen for 6 seconds". A deliberate patch, with notes, changed them to "slow by 65% for 12 seconds" or "slow energy regen by 65% for 6 seconds". The reversion, which was never noted in patch notes, XML, or tooltips, makes them apparently have the old functionality."

 

 

Also, again from a few days ago:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=787730

 

" and the ion railgun talents were reverted internally to a previous patch (the talents claim to reduce speed by 65% for 12 seconds and regeneration by 65% for 6 seconds, but in fact speed is reduced by 40% for 6 seconds and regeneration by 100% for 6 seconds, earlier versions of these talents). It's quite possible this was a deliberate change (in which case, fix the tooltips please), or an accidental change."

 

 

 

 

But yes, that is correct, and you should likely all be running the energy regen stop talent, for the last several months. Mostly because the snare stopped working, however!

 

Or don't listen to Verain! It's fine!

 

 

 

 

 

Fun fact: We don't even know if this is deliberate or not. I'm guessing not, but like Ion Missile, they really need to either change the effect or the tooltip.

[Delta_V]

Huh, I remember people pointing out that the Slow had been broken/reverted to an earlier state, but for some reason I don't remember anything being said about the Energy Regen also being affected.

 

I must have just noticed it now because the Imps on Harbinger have apparently rediscovered their love of gunships and have been running over 50% gunships in every TDM I have seen, so there has been a lot more Ion Rail flying around.

[Bolo_Yeung]

I must have just noticed it now because the Imps on Harbinger have apparently rediscovered their love of gunships and have been running over 50% gunships in every TDM I have seen, so there has been a lot more Ion Rail flying around.

 

...And probably at the same time they type on forums that GS is underpowered

Edited January 9, 2015 by Bolo_Yeung

[Kuciwalker]

THIS HAS BEEN LIKE THIS FOR MONTHS

 

The change isn't "Ion railgun energy lockout back to 100%".

 

The change is that the Ion Railgun Tier 5 talents now behave in their prepatch state- that is to say, the snare is 40% for 6 seconds, not55% for 12 seconds, and the energy lockout is 100% for 6 seconds, not 65% for 6 seconds.

 

 

This is when we were sure the snare had an issue (October):

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=768091

 

Here's me pointing out both of those bugs when 3.0 hit, as part of the bug roundup:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7852176

 

No, I saw those, but I misunderstood and thought the only reversion was the 12s->6s on the slow. Also during that time I wasn't playing much and I didn't get hit with any ions.

 

And on JM I barely ever fly gunships anymore anyway, because it's not really necessary.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Kuciwalker

[MiaowZedong]

But yes, that is correct, and you should likely all be running the energy regen stop talent, for the last several months. Mostly because the snare stopped working, however!

.

The snare seems to me to still be working, though. And that makes things not that clear-cut, because, to me, the real strength of the snare talent is that you can apply its full effects with the slightest tap. The regen stop is effectively a 14.4 engine power, plus 24 (or more) blaster power drain over 6 seconds, and that's obviously very strong, but that won't actually degrade his performance until he runs out of power, and that might not happen at once. If it's someone like Tom hurtling towards my face, he might kill me before running out, at least if the Ion hit wasn't fully charged. There is also Booster Recharge, and more marginally, STE that are not affected. So while the regen stop does stack better with full charge hits, the snare talent adds more to taps, and that is pretty strong when dealing with scouts.

 

I'm leaving aside the trivial case where you can repeatedly tap the same guy to keep him controlled, because, well, it's a trivial case. If you can do that, you don't need either talent to beat him.

 

Unless there's something I'm missing (the regen stop spreading by AoE maybe?) I do see a case still for the snare.

Edited January 9, 2015 by MiaowZedong

[SammyGStatus]

The snare seems to me to still be working, though. And that makes things not that clear-cut, because, to me, the real strength of the snare talent is that you can apply its full effects with the slightest tap. The regen stop is effectively a 14.4 engine power, plus 24 (or more) blaster power drain over 6 seconds, and that's obviously very strong, but that won't actually degrade his performance until he runs out of power, and that might not happen at once. If it's someone like Tom hurtling towards my face, he might kill me before running out, at least if the Ion hit wasn't fully charged. There is also Booster Recharge, and more marginally, STE that are not affected. So while the regen stop does stack better with full charge hits, the snare talent adds more to taps, and that is pretty strong when dealing with scouts.

 

I'm leaving aside the trivial case where you can repeatedly tap the same guy to keep him controlled, because, well, it's a trivial case. If you can do that, you don't need either talent to beat him.

 

Unless there's something I'm missing (the regen stop spreading by AoE maybe?) I do see a case still for the snare.

 

The snare still works, just not at the degree that the tool tip indicated, and as such is more than marginally a worse choice than regen stop. I may make my Cartel T1 GS take the regen stop to see what happens.

 

Still don't understand how their code got all frazzled though >.<

[Verain]

The snare seems to me to still be working, though. And that makes things not that clear-cut, because, to me, the real strength of the snare talent is that you can apply its full effects with the slightest tap.

 

"The slightest tap" is still an aimed railgun shot, and both T5 talents have always applied 100% in that case, no matter their iteration.

 

There is a snare, but it is NOT working as stated. As I put, I think three times in the post you quote, the snare is broken in exactly the fashion that I mentioned. We even confirmed this by queueing against each other at the time.

 

 

So the entire tier reverted to an older state, exactly like I said above, and linked to. If you prefer snares to drains in the general case, that is fine- I recommend the drain right now because I believe a 100% block on regen is superior to a 40% snare for 6 seconds. If the snare did what it said, or if the energy lockout did what it said, my recommendation would be the opposite. You are free to come to your own conclusion, and if you feel the actual snare is superior to the actual lockout, as they exist on live and have for months, go right ahead. But don't pretend the snare is 55% for 12 seconds, because it is not.

 

 

I'm leaving aside the trivial case where you can repeatedly tap the same guy to keep him controlled, because, well, it's a trivial case. If you can do that, you don't need either talent to beat him.

 

Correct, this case doesn't matter.

 

Unless there's something I'm missing (the regen stop spreading by AoE maybe?) I do see a case still for the snare.

 

You are more than welcome to select a 40% snare for 6 seconds over a 100% engine regen lockout for 6 seconds. Gunsheep made a similar call back when, like today, both worked this way, and when, unlike today, the tooltips were correct. But I do not make that recommendation. I believe the engine lockout is generally superior to the marginal and extremely short duration snare. I switched immediately when the snare became enough to actually concern a scout, and I reverted as soon as we discovered that the talents were reverted.

[Verain]

I may make my Cartel T1 GS take the regen stop to see what happens.

 

It is the same thing that used to happen. They get an infinity sign debuff for 6 seconds, and during that time, their engine produces nothing.

 

Still don't understand how their code got all frazzled though >.<

 

Lets pretend it has something to do with:

> Simultaneous reversion of Ion Missile snare (that was the same patch that broke that)

> All XML values involving durations getting screwed up by the inclusion of an invalid character (this is why your plasma railgun no longer says how much damage it does over what interval, and why it lacks the qualifying text about needing a minimum charge)

> Sab probe's outstanding problem

 

And lets assume it might have something to do with the lack of testing that involves a few things still broken from 3.0, including repair drone tier 3 talent (neither do anything: repair drone tier 2 is the most upgraded it can be, the talents do nothing).

[MiaowZedong]

You are more than welcome to select a 40% snare for 6 seconds over a 100% engine regen lockout for 6 seconds. Gunsheep made a similar call back when, like today, both worked this way, and when, unlike today, the tooltips were correct. But I do not make that recommendation. I believe the engine lockout is generally superior to the marginal and extremely short duration snare. I switched immediately when the snare became enough to actually concern a scout, and I reverted as soon as we discovered that the talents were reverted.

You're missing my point. I'm not arguing that the regen stop isn't superior in the general case, because it is. What I'm saying is that the snare is superior in specific cases I happen to be highly concerned about. That's not to say there aren't specific, high stakes cases where the regen stop would win out (gunship duelling is an obvious one) but the cases that are of highest concern to me, right now, favour the snare. If the opposition I faced most often changed their tactics or some pilots who occasionally visit queued more often, I'd probably switch to the regen stop.

 

I don't think a 40% snare is marginal. It's 66.7% more time in my sights, and 40% less cursor speed to target the person and 40% less turn rate to centre the shot. Those are absolutely significant advantages, and they're guaranteed no matter what as long as I can land that first hit.

 

In contrast, the regen stop only has practical consequences (and those consequences are enormous, no argument about that) if the victim runs out of power. Now, that's not too big an if provided I can land a fully charged ion (although there is Booster Recharge, and very conservative power management is a possible counter, and the occasional STE scout), but if I just get a quick tap in it's by no means guaranteed that they won't have enough seconds of power left to get to cover, or to get into range and either kill me or force me to move, hence my comment about snare being a greater addition to a tap.

 

Though again, there's no argument that the general case does favour regen stop at the moment. I'm just not very worried about the general case when picking my Ion T5 talent.