Anyone else waiting with bated breath for some dps scoundrel updates?

[Fellow-Canadian]

I know I am.

[Hei_Atzfel]

Why would you be? Concealment is in an amazing place and lethality only needs minor changes.

[quantez]

Concealment is in an amazing place

 

That's why i am expecting a nerf soon

[Nefczi]

Why would you be? Concealment is in an amazing place and lethality only needs minor changes.

 

They are in good place but "amazing" is rather a bit of an overstatement, unless you forget for a moment about PTs,Sorcs and Sins existing. Even with upcoming nerfs those classes still will be on top as Bioware arent touching some of the main issues with those classes.

[dego-harmonium]

Concealment is a good spot for regs, but really has no place in team ranked in the current metagame. No good team is going to have an op dps on it. Edited March 2, 2015 by dego-harmonium

[Haystak]

The only update I see is maybe something to address the imbalance of melee to range in raids right now. Pretty much all raid groups will prefger having ranged dps over melee based on the fact that melee just take way to much damage.

 

Other than that, I dont expect anything until 3.6-7 time frame. As that seems to be the last time they focused on PvP. They seem to be following the same routine as last year.

 

The whole "dps operatives are amazing" comment made me chuckle. Forum force trick......"These arent the operatives you are looking for....operatives are fine"

 

I have no clue why people think the other classes are going to get nerfed.

 

Im expecting a bit of buffing to go on for some of the other classes more than us. I think sents were given a little QoL changes to help them, but expect more to come later on. Merc/Commando will probably get a hefty buff as well when they look at PvP. Im not expecting damage numbers to change, but I am expecting some movement buffs, or more robust defensive cool downs.

[Fellow-Canadian]

I'm hopeful that out our AE will get some attention at the very least.

[WickedImage]

Nope, ops get much better and they'll be nerfed again. I'm praying they don't touch them tbh. An "update" sounds like a nerf in waiting lol.

[Hei_Atzfel]

They are in good place but "amazing" is rather a bit of an overstatement, unless you forget for a moment about PTs,Sorcs and Sins existing. Even with upcoming nerfs those classes still will be on top as Bioware arent touching some of the main issues with those classes.

 

The BS levels that are AP, Hatred, and Lightning don't make concealment less good. Those specs are vastly overperforming. Concealment is probably the most balanced spec in the game as well as being in the best state it's probably ever been in.

[Saikochoro]

The BS levels that are AP, Hatred, and Lightning don't make concealment less good. Those specs are vastly overperforming. Concealment is probably the most balanced spec in the game as well as being in the best state it's probably ever been in.

 

This. I hate how some want concealment brought up to stupid levels like hatred or ap. Even if those classes weren't nerfed...and concealment brought to their level I am 100% positive of what would happen. They would nerf the crap out of concealment. They would most likely reduce damage and survivability and probably something like energy management for an extra dirty kick to the nuts. Think of all the rage when 2.6 released when ops got some good buffs (by no means op) and then the devs announced a nerf 1 week later after promising no nerfs were coming. If concealment was brought up to a legitimately op level then they would most certainly kill the spec with the nerf sledge hammer....and they would do it fast....of this I have no doubt.

 

That being said, concealment is in a great place. They have great damage and survivability but must make decisions on how to balance them. They are counterable, but have many tools of their own. They are ahead of some classes and behind the stupid op ones. They are in a balanced state IMO. Once hatred and ap are fixed they are even better. The only true thing that keeps them out of team ranked is their damage style isn't right in the current mets. Pressure is better because of the ridiculousness that is hatred. If hard switch burst comps are used AP and MM are better only because of their range. But that doesn't mean concealment is underpowered.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Saikochoro

[Adovir]

All I can see are maybe 3.1.3 a few QoL changes but nothing else positive, I kind of agree with the whole if we get anything it'll be a nerf mentality right now, I mean I have been dealing with people hatin on blood boiler because it hits too hard and gives us "far too much burst and is unfair"some scrubs BW will listen to(dec-Feb 3.0) even now I'm pretty sure we are vastly superior healers for grouped ranked so they may make changes because of some nonexistent QQ about grouped ranked. So yeah I kinda don't hope for any OP changes, just the required balance of the broken classes

[Ghisallo]

All the different stances..."Concealment is fine", "Concealment needs and nerf", " Concealment needs a buff" revolve around one thing imo... The WoW trap SWTOR fell into. A game with both PvE and PvP can work BUT it has to be fully integrated. Before WoW we had games like DAoC and UO. These games did have PvE but the main factor was PvP. You balanced around one and the other was a sideline to be addressed if you could. There was no separate gear, little options to avoid PvP if you really wanted to enjoy PvE, and you needed some stuff from PvE to properly PvP. As such balancing was A LOT easier. Do you attract as many players? No...you lose the "PvE is for carebears" and "PvP is for gankers" crowds BUT the game itself is more consistent and better designed (from a technical standpoint).

 

Once you start trying to segregate game play, introduce different gear etc. you create an endless cycle of QQ as nerfs or buffs come for one type of content these then have an unwanted ripple effect into type of content, fix that and balance it over there and it's unbalanced where the original change occurred.

 

I really wish developer houses would do away with segregated game play. Either integrate it or pick one to be your primary purpose. Want a PvP game, make PvE a side line simply for world immersion and to make leveling less single track. Want a PvE game, make PvP the sideline with simple warfronts there to break the monotony when you are done your dailies and waiting for friends to log on/raid time. The current path seems to create far more drama and QQ than its worth.

[Shiniira]

[...]

 

I really wish developer houses would do away with segregated game play. Either integrate it or pick one to be your primary purpose. Want a PvP game, make PvE a side line simply for world immersion and to make leveling less single track. Want a PvE game, make PvP the sideline with simple warfronts there to break the monotony when you are done your dailies and waiting for friends to log on/raid time. The current path seems to create far more drama and QQ than its worth.

 

 

I don't aggree.

 

For some reason people seem to think that it is impossible to balance PvP and PvE simultaniously.

I ask myself, why this assumption.

 

In my opinion, a real need for as much balance as possble only really exists in a PvP environment, because of the simple fact that you play against each other so you want as much fairness as possible to reduce the variables that outshine pure skill.

 

In PvE however, all players play against the same enemy, so why is there a need for all classes to do the same amount of DPS if the goal itself is to just kill the boss togather. What does it matter if one class does 1000 dps and another does 850. If the boss dies at the end of the day the mission is accomplished, other then personal epeen on a parser or dps meter.

 

Sure one could say that raidgroups will not allow the 850 dps class to join but honestly, this might only be a concern for top tier, world first raiders which only represent a fraction of 1% of the playerbase. Why is there a need to balance for this fraction of a percent?

 

Every other, normaly playing raiding group will just stick with their players and do the raids regardless of if one class coul theoreticly perform 15% better than another.

In fact the differences between how well one player plays compared to another is far more influencial than the theroreticly possible dps a class could perform in a perfect environment with a perfect player behind it.

 

And even then, if you realy think you need to make sure people don't just stack one "overperforming" class, then give every class specific utility for the raid that is far more important than a few more DPS. So that having a good mixture of classes in your raid is superior to having a raid with only the top dps classes.

 

So in short, I realy think that the only toxic behavior that haunts the mmo genre for quite some time now is the strange concept of maximizing dps over everything else to feel oneself superior to others and if one is not the top dps inside the raid a buff has to be made to "fix" this outrageious unfairness... but for some reason the real concept of raiding which means playing togather and defeating a boss as a team where everyone does its part not by just doing dps but by attending and by helping defeating, got lost during the years.

 

I am not sure if this concept is an abomination wow has created, but the elitistic bahaviour that leads to nerfs, buffs, nerfs and the loss of class diversity has to go.

 

Again, this is just my personal opinion.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Shiniira

[Ghisallo]

Its not an assumption on my part. I have played MMOs since 1999. UO, EQ, EQ2, DAoC, Shadowbane, WoW, Warhammer, AoC, Aion, Champions Online, City of Heroes, Darkfall, Rift, GW2, and SWTOR. I like both PvE and PvP so being partial and part of a toxic environment os not on my list of things to do. I have never in all those games seen a game that succeeds at balancing both when it simply tries to segregate game play in the manner that SWTOR does. All of the balance issues obviously are not about the PvP and PvE dichotomy but in the "segregated game" it is definitely a contributing factor. I could go into why in great detail but this post will be long enough, listing the reasons would turn this into a bonafide essay.

 

The best PvP I have ever seen are the games where it is the raison d'etre for the game and PvE is a sideline of sorts. Next games that go to the trouble of having completely different PvE and PvP rulesets...heals, damage, durability, class by class, essentially two different games in one. Even in the two in one games they often have problems when they take short cuts as keeping to separate games under the same hood can be prohibitively expensive.

 

In a game that tries to do both equally with little or no PvP specific rules, it has ALWAY been a cluster. You may say it is not impossible BUT in over 15 years of playing multiple games by multiple developers (essentially playing since the genre was born) I have yet to see it work. There is an great quote... Definition..."Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." All the wishfull thinking... All the thoughts of "its not impossible" fly in the face of reality.

 

If multiple developers have tried to achieve the same goal for almost 20 years, pouring what amounts to hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars in the attempt saying it is possible is nothing more than wishful thinking. Sucks. I WISH it wasn't this way, that we didn't have almost 20 years worth failure as evidence, but we do and I am not one to engage in wishful thinking.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Shiniira]

Unfortunately by your unwilligness to provide arguments for your stance, all I can read out of your post is: It doesn't work because it didn't 20 years ago either and thus it is all I can comment on now:

 

The thing is that the last 10 years of mmo history have been dominated by WoW to such an extend that nearly every mmo that came out after this particular game, have tried to copy it rather than to do things better. This leads to the problem we have now 10 years of stale in development ofgamedesign in MMOs.

 

WoW has failed in combining pve and pvp and every mmo that came after wow basically copied this fail. Thing is that the current generation of designers and the one to come is heavyly incluenced by WoW because nearly everyone has played it.

 

WoW and its community has pushed the general mindset into the focus that every class needs to be able to do exactly the same DPS. Everything else a class provides or every other participation into the actual goal has deminished in the mindeset of this generation of mmo gamers.

 

Like I have said already, normally it shouldn't matter how much DPS your class can theoreticly do if you as a player with your group are still able to defeat the boss.

DPS is such a small fraction of the actual achievment of defeating a raidboss but yet people make it as it is the most important aspect.

 

 

Concering your stance of seperate rulesets for pvp and pve:

I am not with you here, actually WoW goes this road recently by changeing the numbers of skills in pvp and pve aswell as locking some completely out.

I hate it because it cuts my class down and in the worst case it could mean that my class plays fundamentally different in pvp and pve thus limiting my fun or choice.

 

In my opinion smooth class design and gameplay is by far more important than the theoreticly maximal dps it can provide under perfect circumstances. And as I have said already: The limiting factor in DPS output a class can do is most of the time the player itself and not the class. I am pretty sure that the vast majority of players would be able to achieve a bigger DPS increase by improving their own skills and gameplay than by receiving a class buff.

[TVDF]

Merc/Commando will probably get a hefty buff as well when they look at PvP. Im not expecting damage numbers to change, but I am expecting some movement buffs, or more robust defensive cool downs.

 

Do you really think so? Mercs have been that way forever, I highly doubt it's going to change.

[Haystak]

Do you really think so? Mercs have been that way forever, I highly doubt it's going to change.

 

About as long as dps scoundrels I believe. Though I hear Healing mercs are doing decent in ranked right now. It seems the two classes are linked in viability as far as dps are concerned.

 

Both do well enough in pve to not warrant a buff, and pvp is littered with people who play other classes.

 

THinking mercs are going to get buffed, might just be hope rearing its ugly head.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Haystak

[Ghisallo]

Unfortunately by your unwilligness to provide arguments for your stance, all I can read out of your post is: It doesn't work because it didn't 20 years ago either and thus it is all I can comment on now:

 

snip

 

.

 

Fine I will explain why. Even though you are still looking at 6 years before WoW came to dominate post 2004 when it launched.

 

First...

 

by separate rulesets I mean the minute you enter PvP the rules change... your damage, heals, armor, resistance values etc all globally change. In essence you have two different games mechanically.

 

Now the reasons...

 

1. People expect that classes be different and not simply the same with particle effects.

2. PvP and PvE have different dynamics.... example DoT and HoT dependent classes tend not to do well in PvP where Burst is Key.

3. People do not want a "PvP class" and a "PvE Class".

4. People demand (for some stupid reason) Different gear. I remember in another game the HUGE outcry that came out when they added a stat on gear for tanks, just tanks, in PvE. As soon as it was introduced the cries of "Why do the carebears get 'special' gear and not us!!!! Where is our PvP gear?!?!?!?!"

5. Abilities that are perfectly balanced in PvE in relation to the content can be stupid OP in PvP (this is often an issue with healing.)

5a..While they do indeed do some closed PvP testing, the lion's share is PvE testing because there you have a twofer, you get to see if the classes are balanced against the content and also find bugs in the content itself. No real bugs to find in the content when the content is another player.

 

So in essence when it comes to the dynamics in the games, PvE and PvP you have two different games, each with different demands and priorities. Game developers want to deal with this the easy way (read cheap) if they chose to try and keep everyone happy by not having 2 different rule sets. If they don't at least have a different ruleset then they have one of two options.

 

Option 1: simply have individual abilities get nerfed the minute you enter PvP. The problem with this is that as it is a piece meal tool, things are missed and often they do not scale correctly as things advance, thus creating new imbalances.

Option 2: have "PvP classes" and "PvE classes".

 

Problem is Option 2 runs heal long into #'s 2 and 3 above. In a game like SWTOR where A. the bulk of servers (and thus players) are at least slanted towards PvE this usually fails hard. B. when it is a f2p game where to field respec you need to be a subscriber it fails hard because everyone will not have access to this option.

 

All of the above creates a constant seesaw of balancing issues as they try to accommodate, in essence, two different games. It is simply technically impossible to achieve a balance in this kind of environment. An issue will be seen in one side, corrected and this will then create an issue on the other side, that then needs correction. You end up with an endless tennis match and we have had it for almost 20 years.

 

I think I see your main point though but your ideal fails in the face of reality. First these games REQUIRE balance to function...always have and always will. You aren't looking at the issue from either a logical point of view or taking human nature into account. You believe that "hey it doesn't matter if your soul got nerfed in PvE because the mob still died right?" Well first most people in my experience don't feel this way. Second that isn't the only factor

 

for factors that see your idea as irrelevant....

 

1. Most, if not all, of the dedicated PvE players (read don't really PvP) would be pissed as ALL HELL if their class get's nerfed because of an issue in the content they do not participate in.

2. Most, if not all, of the dedicated PvP players would be pissed as ALL HELL if their class get's nerfed because of an issue in the content they do not participate in.

 

For 1 and 2 it doesn't even have to do with the numbers themselves. It is simply the knowledge that a level of performance they came to enjoy was cut down because of content they do not enjoy. Imagine if you got "punished" because of something someone else did. It's a very similar dynamic.

 

For how most people I have encountered feel...

 

3. I will admit due to the fact you have to "opt in" for group/raid wide parsing it isn't as big an issue here but most people in casual guilds do indeed care if they feel like they are carrying someone (read doing less dps). It still exists here if the players pay attention but it is not something anyone can put of a scoreboard at will.

 

I have been an officer in both hard core and casual guilds. I was a hard core player until I became more career and family oriented (just having a family and a mortgage will do that to ya lol). While you may believe that most people on the casual side don't care about someone's over all performance and all they care about is that the mob dies, sadly that is NOT the reality. The only difference is that a casual player won't say it to a guildmate's face.

 

As the officer I was the one bombarded by tells in the casual guilds almost non-stop....

"Jesus, Bob is doing half the dps he could be doing if he ran the other build!!!!!! why is he here?? We would have had this mob down 3 pulls ago if he was running what he should."

Few bosses are one shots, you progress on them learning the fight. After a few wipes people start looking for something to blame, if they aren't the one obviously always standing in fire or doing "meh" dps/hps.

 

Now will they say it to Bob's face? Hell no. If Bob is really nice they might even say "well Bob sucks, and if he wasn't Bob I would want him gone BUT he is such a nice guy and I don't want to hurt his feelings because he is such a nice guy." Even if they say the later though they are NOT happy.

 

I am glad you feel the way you do about maximal dps and MMO's would arguably be a much better for it, but sadly, in my experience, your view is the minority held view and the Devs need to address the majority. I said arguably because your idea would have one negative effect...

 

Tanks and healers can't "hide" the way you propose that dps "hide". If a tank can't hold aggro he is the goat. If a tank who has the right gear, and uses his cooldowns appropriately, dies regularly the healer is the goat. Sorry but from a simple perspective of fairness I think it shady to say "hey who cares if Bob isn't that good at dps as everyone else, the mob died". When you say this, in essence, you say "dps can be carried so long as the healers and tanks are solid." I have never been a fan set ups where people are held to different standards. That is exactly what your theory does.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Ghisallo

[galaadswtor]

Only buff I long for on my leth is an improvement on burst/target switching, and/or maybe having Kprobe do it's job on one stance only and having a second one extend it. All in all, just a little buff, that extra something to please us.

 

Maybe have TA increase CA (then rename it to tactical assault ?) instead of dots, our dps being "situationnal" : DOTs don't come with a direct physical action (with your knife) (what is stupid anyway if you know what damages knives do...), then how do they increase the damage you do with your ranged weapon ? By lowering your armor or defensive abilites ? Well, scoundrels don't use acid but bleeds, and your ranged weapons does straight damage, point blank, I can't think of any realistic way to link dots to that.

 

You gain TAs by taking tactical advantage (...) of a situation, and what is more tactical than attacking a target who can't think you will ? Let's say TA is like a combat rage you use to improve your fighting skills, and we're done. Then the buff is linked to you, not your target, and you're better as dealing damage to anybody ; when you've built your combat stance, you can benefit from it whatever foe you're aimed at, like a sith building his rage to fight or a jedi concentrating on fighting.

 

Well I hope my english wasn't too bad on it, to me OP are really balanced and they get some nice tools, the damage can be nice but we miss a strong shoot.

 

The fact that some (non healer) classes can cleanse dots is another stupid point to me, even if I can see why, in terms of gameplay, it's something necessary. You bleed, you bleed, if a power can clean acid or cotherize it shall not come with another ability, and certainly not something as powerful as a vanish, that already resets combat. If I throw acid at anybody, I expect to follow his tracks when he hides, or at least any disadvantage for him, like being unable to fight 100% for X seconds.

 

Well, just some thoughts, thought I'd really like to have them discussed.

Edited March 9, 2015 by galaadswtor
poor english

[steveerkcanjerk]

Concealment is a good spot for regs, but really has no place in team ranked in the current metagame. No good team is going to have an op dps on it.

 

my lethality operative does very well in wz. It matters how crafty you are ops work well in ranked if you know how to play them trust me this class is fine where it is self heals, rolls, then some dots. The dots should not hit as hard as sins dots because we use cull which basically makes the dots hit harder and is quite effective in ranked.

[steveerkcanjerk]

Only buff I long for on my leth is an improvement on burst/target switching, and/or maybe having Kprobe do it's job on one stance only and having a second one extend it. All in all, just a little buff, that extra something to please us.

 

Maybe have TA increase CA (then rename it to tactical assault ?) instead of dots, our dps being "situationnal" : DOTs don't come with a direct physical action (with your knife) (what is stupid anyway if you know what damages knives do...), then how do they increase the damage you do with your ranged weapon ? By lowering your armor or defensive abilites ? Well, scoundrels don't use acid but bleeds, and your ranged weapons does straight damage, point blank, I can't think of any realistic way to link dots to that.

 

You gain TAs by taking tactical advantage (...) of a situation, and what is more tactical than attacking a target who can't think you will ? Let's say TA is like a combat rage you use to improve your fighting skills, and we're done. Then the buff is linked to you, not your target, and you're better as dealing damage to anybody ; when you've built your combat stance, you can benefit from it whatever foe you're aimed at, like a sith building his rage to fight or a jedi concentrating on fighting.

 

Well I hope my english wasn't too bad on it, to me OP are really balanced and they get some nice tools, the damage can be nice but we miss a strong shoot.

 

The fact that some (non healer) classes can cleanse dots is another stupid point to me, even if I can see why, in terms of gameplay, it's something necessary. You bleed, you bleed, if a power can clean acid or cotherize it shall not come with another ability, and certainly not something as powerful as a vanish, that already resets combat. If I throw acid at anybody, I expect to follow his tracks when he hides, or at least any disadvantage for him, like being unable to fight 100% for X seconds.

 

Well, just some thoughts, thought I'd really like to have them discussed.

Lethality is fine and the TA is not big deal i can get pretty much an endless rotation with it. It takes a sec to crank up but once its going it really starts to hurt people.

[Halorinn]

I've just started playing Dirty Fighting (I just can't call it Ruffian for some reason), but there are two changes I would hope for.

 

1) Sanguinary Shot is taken off GCD. It just feels clunky to have to have to wait for a full tick to make use of this. I imagine there'd be a slight increase in DPS because of this if timed correctly.

2) Give us a passive that widens the arc of Blaster Volley or make BV not cost an UH. This spec is thin on AOE, and there are very few scenarios where it will be worthwhile right now to burn an UH or to take the time to position yourself to make this worth doing.

[zZeroAgent]

I think the Operative is fine right now, I don't want a buff just for it to get nerfed down the line. However, Carbine Burst needs to be reworked entirely. It's awful, a waste of a slot, and I've never seen anyone use it ever. Meanwhile you see Lacerate, Flame Sweep, and Smash used all the time by other melee classes

 

Our only AoE is literally the worst one in the entire game

Edited March 17, 2015 by zZeroAgent

[ped_i]

I pvp on my Op and i'm thinking a little bit more survivability would be great. not a huge change, just maybe moving some utilities around and such that we dont have to choose between so many good options. making someone of them into one would be great. i feel thats the best way of buffing survivability without making us OP

[QuiveringPotato]

I pvp on my Op and i'm thinking a little bit more survivability would be great. not a huge change, just maybe moving some utilities around and such that we dont have to choose between so many good options. making someone of them into one would be great. i feel thats the best way of buffing survivability without making us OP

 

I think Concealment is fine in terms of survivability, healer is alright it seems, but lethality could really use some help with taking less GCDs for their selfheals. It's kinda stupid to have to use ~4-5 GCD's to get a decent amount of hots rolling, when it already takes so long to set up your damage. For lethality, I'd like to see the effect of: "Activating Exfiltrate also refreshes your Kolto Probes on a 10 seconds internal cooldown." applied to Quickening, and additionally make it to where the Kolto Infusion proc from Quickening is off of the GCD.

 

This may end up making their healing OP as I've had matches where I've done like 600k damage and 500k heals, or 900k damage and 700k heals, but I think it would still get rid of some clunkiness from the spec.

 

If anything, Precision Instruments needs to go, and Med Shield (possibly needs to be buffed) / Augmented Shields need to be combined.

 

I think we need a few new utilities as some of them are kinda lackluster. A nice one for the 2nd or 3rd tier would be to make it to where: "When you exit stealth, you gain 2 stacks of Kolto Probes automatically." or something like that.

Edited March 17, 2015 by QuiveringPotato