Update on Sentinel and Marauder

[ped_i]

True but, what else are we going to to do to encourage them, even if their job description or not (even if it might be their own fault for this). The community is already Toxic and Devs have ignored most of the stuff for too long. We don't need to be grateful (We can give thumb sup and probably encourage for what it should be standard and hope more of the communication like this happens in the future) and we don't need to make any crazy demands but reasonable once.

 

Encourage them ? their salary is their encouragement .. *** is this serious ? if they did their job in the first place people wouldn't have been angry with the lack of communication and care that bioware is showing their PAYING costumers. dude this is not kindergarten ok ?

Edited April 9, 2015 by ped_i

[KalElc]

Encourage them ? their salary is their encouragement .. *** is this serious ? if they did their job in the first place people wouldn't have been angry with the lack of communication and care that bioware is showing their PAYING costumers. dude this is not kindergarten ok ?

 

Ofc, there is no kindergarten, and its definitive no ragegarten neater, what else are we going to do, QQ for every single time there are 2 option. Continue and wine or Quit. Docent help spitting more oil in to the fire as it clearly have never reach them before and never will, waste of energy, if u are here to vent and need to steam of sure, no one is stopping u.

[ped_i]

Ofc, there is no kindergarten, and its definitive no ragegarten neater, what else are we going to do, QQ for every single time there are 2 option. Continue and wine or Quit. Docent help spitting more oil in to the fire as it clearly have never reach them before and never will, waste of energy, if u are here to vent and need to steam of sure, no one is stopping u.

 

For people who want to put energy into voicing their complaints more power to them, they should not stop if they chose to pay for the game, they have every right to do so. But yeah there are 2 options. I saw even with the frustration there is no reason to pay for this broken service hence why me (and honestly many other people who mained a marauder) have unsubbed and quit the game. I'm just here since i have 20 days of sub left. so I'm gonna use that to let people know that hey should not be happy and settle down with any **** yellow post. Standard should be higher. but hey, if they are happy with far few between BS posts and **** service and wanna waste their money, again more power to them I'm out.

[KalElc]

Fear enough. I can agree to some points that the standard should be higher, that is true. we are ofc paying to play this game and should get more out of this.

[Xenphon]

The pts has closed alongside the forum. The 27th of March John posted this:

 

Hey everyone,

 

I wanted to give you all an update on the upcoming PTS class change schedule. While there are two upcoming PTS updates, we have decided to lump all of the remaining class changes into the final update next week. This way you all get a final, beefier update instead of two tiny teasers.

 

This final patch is going to have a number of goodies for Marauders/Sentinels and Juggernauts/Guardians, with a spotlight on Rage/Focus and Fury/Concentration. To focus your opinions/ideas going into the final update, I ask that everyone post the top three things that you want to see improved. Supply evidence to your claims, and we’ll be sure to prioritize them as we decide the final changes.

 

Cheers!

 

-John

 

You can find the post here. It will probably be archived, so if the link is dead that is the reason.

 

There was a patch the 2nd of April, which, going by John's post, was not the patch he referred to. That brings me to my question:

 

Where is the final patch we were promised that would, and I quote, "have a number of goodies for Marauders/Sentinels [..], with a spotlight on [..] Fury/Concentration. "? What happened? Was the immunity change the only change you decided to give fury? You did not even touch our ridiculous utility points, which would undoubtedly have helped the whole class. I lack the words to properly articulate the confusion, anger and disappointment I am left with at the moment. What happened to the transparency you promised us? You literally wrote "have a number of goodies for Marauders/Sentinels [..], with a spotlight on [..] Fury/Concentration. ", but gave us but two changes. One of which was rather minor (the blood ward change).

 

I will end it here. I have struggled to keep this as constructive as possible without spouting my anger at you. The closure of the pts is a slap in our face, basically saying you can't be arsed to even give us promised changes. I have just one more question for you:

 

Have you given up on marauders|sentinels as a class?

Edited April 9, 2015 by Xenphon

[Costello]

I'd like to still be playing my Mara, but I don't hate my raid group enough to make them suffer along with me

 

Very well put. Pretty much my experience I am loathed to sign up for my guilds raids cause I know they will have to carry my marauder. And given that is all the end game content in the game it sought of limits what there is to do.

 

And Im sure there are people that think they are doing well as a marauder but the figures would suggest your just working hard to still need to be carried. Further more with the incoming nerfs its likely that raid groups wont be able to carry you and you will have to play a different class.

[Hichitsuki-hime]

Hey folks,

 

I know that some of you have been waiting for a status update on Maras/Sents, especially for PvP. Here is some info from the Combat team.

 

---

 

Hello everyone,

 

We would like to take this opportunity to discuss Marauders/Sentinels and their present state in the game. To do so, we wish to start by outlining the rotational design philosophies of the three Marauder/Sentinel rotations.

 

Carnage/Combat: Low Rotation Difficulty, Moderate Burst and Moderate Sustained Damage

Annihilation/Watchman: High Rotation Difficulty, High Sustained and Low Burst Damage

Fury/Concentration: Moderate Rotation Difficulty, High Burst and Low Sustained Damage

 

Marauder/Sentinel PvP Viability:

As it presently stands, Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are performing well in Solo Ranked and Group Ranked PvP, respectively. We target a 50% win rate for each Discipline in PvP, and Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are slightly above this ideal win rate. Carnage/Combat is the seventh most effective Discipline (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is right on target. Annihilation/Watchman is ranked seventh in Solo Ranked PvP (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is equally on target. Additionally, Carnage/Combat is currently in one of the top 5 Group Ranked PvP class compositions, and this composition has an 82.6% win rate. While win rates are not the sole variable that we balance PvP performance from, these numbers provide evidence of Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman viability in broad PvP scenarios.

 

Fury/Concentration is in the lower half of the PvP spectrum. Like other classes that are underperforming, this is, and shall continue to be, addressed in upcoming class balance updates.

 

While we plan to adjust Marauders/Sentinels in future updates, we do not expect to see any Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines receiving significant damage output increases. Each of the Disciplines is presently performing at our desired DPS markers, and we plan to focus on Utility in the future. Specifically, mobility and self-healing improvements are currently being tested. We’ll keep you up to date on changes in the coming weeks.

 

It should be noted that PvP success is continually changing as updates reach live and the community learns new strategies with their classes.

Looking forward, we will continue to incrementally improve the status of Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines that are not performing to satisfaction. This is the perspective that we hold for all Disciplines across all classes.

 

We will continue to collect constructive feedback from the threads, concerning all classes, and apply improvements through our continual class balancing updates.

 

-The SWTOR Combat Team

 

SERIOUSLY?????? Musco, tell me right now exactly HOW is SORC MADNESS / SAGE BALANCE OVER-PERFORMING?! And all this mention of pvp, pvp, pvp............ you know there ARE people who don't care about pvp right? 0.o lol

[WheresMyWhisky]

Yep madness sorcs and balance sages need a serious buff at the moment for pve they suck at the moment if they didn't I would prob have switched to my sorc instead of my marauder by now

 

Mind you I haven't actually looked since the latest changes so maybe its not so bad now? anyways as the sustained sorc spec it should be about IO's new lvl I reckon I am assuming of course IO now sits where they want it to

Edited April 10, 2015 by WheresMyWhisky
because i am a div

[Dyvim]

Encourage them ? their salary is their encouragement .. *** is this serious ? if they did their job in the first place people wouldn't have been angry with the lack of communication and care that bioware is showing their PAYING costumers. dude this is not kindergarten ok ?

 

Exactly....they are supposed to be professionals responsible for producing a professional product. We are the customers...we owe them nothing past our money for however long we decide their product/services are worth it...beyond that, suggesting that we have to cheer lead or fanboi for them is laughable. It is incumbent on them to build and support a community around a professional, quality product...it is the ultimate in their own interest.

 

Of course where the conflict comes in happens when they try to deliver the minimum possible in order to milk as much money as possible from the customer base. EAWare is famous for this...and that is, unfortunately, the part of the MMO lifecycle that this failed game is in...but this is extremely short sighted, as new games are coming out all the time, and as the maxim "it takes money/investment to make money" still holds true.

[-Yui-]

I think the main takeaway from this relatively long (36 pages) thread that I find out of the norm, especially for a gaming thread on class balance, is that the community is displaying an unequivocally stand against Bioware's stance that Marauders/Sentinels are fine or somewhat fine. Even players from other classes don't disagree.

 

That's the most surprising part, and should be more indicative of the state of the class than anything else. We want changes. And not just a few months later -- that is what you told us a few months ago -- but by 3.2. Patch 3.1.1 was supposed to be the patch which we were looked at, and that was a month ago (with the announcement that we were being looked at a few weeks before that). With the upcoming 3.2 changes further being so marginal and misdirected that most Marauders/Sentinels wouldn't even care if they were put in or not, that's almost three months where we were supposed to be "fixed," and that's disregarding the feedback given in 3.0 beta (AND disregarding the forum posts on the dismal state of Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman since mid-December).

 

Could an actual time frame be provided or are we stuck waiting interminably for changes that do absolutely nothing to help the class (as has been the case of the past two patches)?

Edited April 10, 2015 by -Yui-

[Projawa]

I think the main takeaway from this relatively long (36 pages) thread that I find out of the norm, especially for a gaming thread on class balance, is that the community is displaying an unequivocally stand against Bioware's stance that Marauders/Sentinels are fine or somewhat fine. Even players from other classes don't disagree.

 

That's the most surprising part, and should be more indicative of the state of the class than anything else. We want changes. And not just a few months later -- that is what you told us a few months ago -- but by 3.2. Patch 3.1.1 was supposed to be the patch which we were looked at, and that was a month ago (with the announcement that we were being looked at a few weeks before that). With the upcoming 3.2 changes further being so marginal and misdirected that most Marauders/Sentinels wouldn't even care if they were put in or not, that's almost three months where we were supposed to be "fixed," and that's disregarding the feedback given in 3.0 beta (AND disregarding the forum posts on the dismal state of Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman since mid-December).

 

Could an actual time frame be provided or are we stuck waiting interminably for changes that do absolutely nothing to help the class (as has been the case of the past two patches)?

 

The main takeaway from this thread: the combat team is politely telling the customer base to "ST-FU" and wait until 4.0 at which time they may/may not see a suitable improvement to the class.

 

The other takeaway is that Eric probably urged them to respond after seeing this thread blowup. They would've otherwise been as mute as always.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Projawa

[mcpark]

You can almost feel the rage from all the unsubed mars/sents who cant reply to this thread but check it to see if things got better for their class, just boiling over with dark energy i didn't cry at my own father funeral but sniff sniff RIP MARS/SENTS.

[Costello]

The pts has closed alongside the forum. The 27th of March John posted this:

 

 

 

You can find the post here. It will probably be archived, so if the link is dead that is the reason.

 

There was a patch the 2nd of April, which, going by John's post, was not the patch he referred to. That brings me to my question:

 

Where is the final patch we were promised that would, and I quote, "have a number of goodies for Marauders/Sentinels [..], with a spotlight on [..] Fury/Concentration. "? What happened? Was the immunity change the only change you decided to give fury? You did not even touch our ridiculous utility points, which would undoubtedly have helped the whole class. I lack the words to properly articulate the confusion, anger and disappointment I am left with at the moment. What happened to the transparency you promised us? You literally wrote "have a number of goodies for Marauders/Sentinels [..], with a spotlight on [..] Fury/Concentration. ", but gave us but two changes. One of which was rather minor (the blood ward change).

 

I will end it here. I have struggled to keep this as constructive as possible without spouting my anger at you. The closure of the pts is a slap in our face, basically saying you can't be arsed to even give us promised changes. I have just one more question for you:

 

Have you given up on marauders|sentinels as a class?

 

Yeah I'd like to know what these changes are.

 

As it stands I haven't seen anything on PTS to suggest that any serious changes are going to happen to marauders/sents to make them anything less than a burden on the raid or ranked teams.

 

It seems very obvious that the combat team don't know what they are doing and whoever came up with 3,0 missed the ball completely and has created an experience that simply isn't enjoyable. From my own experience carnage used to be a fun spec but now its just under par.

[Mrdann]

Hey folks,

 

I wanted to share our thoughts regarding some of the questions and feedback that we have seen in the thread.

 

Playstyle of Annihilation / Watchman

As many of you know, there were changes made to the playstyle of Annihilation and Watchman in 3.0. This definitely seems to be a contentious change for some Marauder/Sentinel players. The last thing we want to do is to put a Discipline’s playstyle in a place that makes its players unhappy. We will keep an eye on this and look into possible playstyle changes in the future. We don’t want you to think that this is feedback that we are ignoring; it is just not something we will change in the short term.

 

PvP Data

Our intent behind exposing win rates for Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman was not to suggest that they are our only data point for decision making. The goal was to express that, by looking at average win rates and overall performance, those Disciplines can be viable. Understanding, however, that in some of those cases it reflects only the best players in that class. Still, it does show that they can play at the top levels.

 

Now, you all brought up a really interesting fact, which is how frequently you see Marauders/Sentinels in the top of all overall ratings. It is true, in looking at that data point, that Marauders/Sentinels are definitely under-represented, we agree! However, we think the most important part of that data is not who is missing from the top, but who makes up the top. Looking at the top spread of players, almost all of them are spread across only three Advanced Classes: Powertech/Vanguard, Sorcerer/Sage, and Assassin/Shadow. That is the real problem that we are working on addressing right now. With those three Advanced Classes over-performing, all other Advanced Classes (including Marauders/Sentinels) are being pushed into a bad place. This is why you will see that we are actively working on toning down those classes specifically (like we did yesterday in 3.1.2).

 

We do want to avoid just buffing other classes up, and instead need to focus on bringing down the over-performing classes. If we concentrated on buffing all other classes to the status of over-performing classes, we would create a power bloat that would make PvE decisively too easy and PvP time-to-kill too short.

 

To reiterate what we said in the last post: We do acknowledge that there are issues with Marauders/Sentinels, especially around Utility and mobility, and we will be working to address these issues in future patches.

 

I do hope that this gives a little bit of perspective into our thoughts around Marauder/Sentinel balance and how it relates to other classes.

 

Thanks!

 

-eric

 

oh ya is that right? prove it then.... link your source

[Skettitangles]

The QQ crowd need to leave now. Sorry, Ive been drinking.... The reality is everyone, even snipers are getting a hit from the nerf bat... It's gonna be equally difficult for all ACs to clear this content. Kindly redirect your your ire to be be content team or whoever is responsible for developing the HM PvE content

[Skettitangles]

So, using the juggernaut example of unstoppable being changed into a utility available to all disciplines, could the devs please do the same albeit in reverse for marauders with defensive forms and make it a passive for all disciplines and redesign the utility? Dual wield mastery should also get this treatment. You could get rid of the utility that lowers the cool down of force choke (surely your data shows you that no one EVER takes this option) and make dual wield mastery a utility if you wanted, but it would probably become another "must have" taken in all utilities builds. The priority however is that defensive forms needs to be made a baseline passive for the AC just like all the other ACs in the game, or an explanation as to why this was not done for the marauder/sentinel class should be communicated to us

[PallyHk]

So, using the juggernaut example of unstoppable being changed into a utility available to all disciplines, could the devs please do the same albeit in reverse for marauders with defensive forms and make it a passive for all disciplines and redesign the utility? Dual wield mastery should also get this treatment. You could get rid of the utility that lowers the cool down of force choke (surely your data shows you that no one EVER takes this option) and make dual wield mastery a utility if you wanted, but it would probably become another "must have" taken in all utilities builds. The priority however is that defensive forms needs to be made a baseline passive for the AC just like all the other ACs in the game, or an explanation as to why this was not done for the marauder/sentinel class should be communicated to us

 

I agree. Dual Wield mastery should at least give all marauders some little more sustenance.

 

However , I am deeply bothered by BW's thinking of "Marauders suck, Lets nerf everything down to their level." I never wanted that to happen. Who would have thought they would rather nerf others than buff this one?

 

Sorcerers are getting the marauder treatment. Whose next?

[ped_i]

The issue they don't understand is that we never asked for a dmg buff, all we wanted was utility reworks which they stated it was gonna happen rapidly, that was one of the reasons they introduced disciplines. Also they cannt figure out that shadow/assassins for example need some of their utilities nerfed and that seens to be nowhere on their priority board. If they communicated more we wouldn't be having these discussions of this forum

[TACeMossie]

I agree. Dual Wield mastery should at least give all marauders some little more sustenance.

 

However , I am deeply bothered by BW's thinking of "Marauders suck, Lets nerf everything down to their level." I never wanted that to happen. Who would have thought they would rather nerf others than buff this one?

 

Sorcerers are getting the marauder treatment. Whose next?

 

I dunno about dual wield mastery, bioware said they are happy with the DPS potential of sents/maras, just not their mobility + Uptime. Meaning if you got dualwield mastery, you'd lose damage from your 100% accurate attacks to get it. Which is stupid cause offhand hits can miss.

 

Also sorcs were nerfed to Arsenal + Marksman levels, because they are a Ranged Burst spec that was doing better than melee sustained specs - and Bioware intended melee sustained specs to be the best on a dummy (e.g. Annihilation) and ranged burst specs to be the worst on a dummy, as melee sustained has the most to lose from mechanics while ranged burst has the least to lose.

[Ruskaeth]

Bioware intended melee sustained specs to be the best on a dummy (e.g. Annihilation) and ranged burst specs to be the worst on a dummy, as melee sustained has the most to lose from mechanics while ranged burst has the least to lose.

Amazing job they have done too in making those sustained ranged specs equal, not that anyone would expect them to do that in mere six months. Glad to hear they have intentions too.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Ruskaeth

[TACeMossie]

Amazing job they have done too in making those sustained ranged specs equal, not that anyone would expect them to do that in mere six months. Glad to hear they have intentions too.

 

Well at least they are sort-of there now. All ranged burst specs are almost the worst specs in the game, beating only Madness/Balance, Focus/Rage and Plasmatech/Pyrotech (third of which is being fixed in 3.2). Additionally, when scatter bombs are nerfed in 3.2, Watchman/Annihilation will be the best dummy spec in the game.

 

Though if it were up to me, it would be (in optimized 198s)

 

4.6-4.7k Ranged Burst

4.7-4.8k Engineering, Advanced Prototype

4.8-4.9k Ranged Sustained, Melee Burst

4.9-5k Pyrotech, Lethality, Combat

5-5.1k Melee Sustained.

 

The reasons AP, Pyro and Lethality aren't in the melee classification are because they are more than 50% ranged, so its not really fair to balance them as a melee spec.

 

The reason I picked those numbers is cause then you don't have to touch the ranged specs much at all (only Balance/Madness), and most specs are in said range already, especially when 3.2 drops.

Edited April 13, 2015 by TACeMossie

[Ruskaeth]

Well at least they are sort-of there now. All ranged burst specs are almost the worst specs in the game, beating only Madness/Balance, Focus/Rage and Plasmatech/Pyrotech (third of which is being fixed in 3.2). Additionally, when scatter bombs are nerfed in 3.2, Watchman/Annihilation will be the best dummy spec in the game.

 

Though if it were up to me, it would be (in optimized 198s)

 

4.6-4.7k Ranged Burst

4.7-4.8k Engineering, Advanced Prototype

4.8-4.9k Ranged Sustained, Melee Burst

4.9-5k Pyrotech, Lethality, Combat

5-5.1k Melee Sustained.

 

The reasons AP, Pyro and Lethality aren't in the melee classification are because they are more than 50% ranged, so its not really fair to balance them as a melee spec.

 

The reason I picked those numbers is cause then you don't have to touch the ranged specs much at all (only Balance/Madness), and most specs are in said range already, especially when 3.2 drops.

AP is on closer to being sustained spec than being a ranged one. I would really like BW to concentrate on Madness to bring it to appropriate level with other ranged sustained. The difference is too much right now. It was also something people literally begged for when sorcs were tuned last time...and ever since 3.0. It's completely fine to be annoyed at BW. I don't stop playing for one or two classes being mishandled (mara/sorcs currently imho) because I play all ACs to being with. Still, the neglect is real.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Ruskaeth

[Ld-Siris]

With predation and blood thirst, why not have berserk be on a cool down. It would make more sense. Berserk is part of all 3 rotations and it makes more sense. Not sure an exact time but about 20s is usually the time it takes to get a stack especially if you have defensive forms.

[Costello]

I agree. Dual Wield mastery should at least give all marauders some little more sustenance.

 

However , I am deeply bothered by BW's thinking of "Marauders suck, Lets nerf everything down to their level." I never wanted that to happen. Who would have thought they would rather nerf others than buff this one?

 

Sorcerers are getting the marauder treatment. Whose next?

 

I am all for dual wield master coming back.

 

BW are kidding themselves if they think marauder dps is up to spec and only an idiot bothers with what dps you can get from a dummy. Killing stuff on my mer is so easy compared to my marauder, dot dot dot death from above often leaves me with a badly damage strong or champion who I easily finish off with my single target attack. My Poor marauder is left with average single target dps against each of them as a smash or sweeping slash just don't cut it.

[OmegaStatuZ]

Hey folks,

 

I know that some of you have been waiting for a status update on Maras/Sents, especially for PvP. Here is some info from the Combat team.

 

---

 

Hello everyone,

 

We would like to take this opportunity to discuss Marauders/Sentinels and their present state in the game. To do so, we wish to start by outlining the rotational design philosophies of the three Marauder/Sentinel rotations.

 

Carnage/Combat: Low Rotation Difficulty, Moderate Burst and Moderate Sustained Damage

Annihilation/Watchman: High Rotation Difficulty, High Sustained and Low Burst Damage

Fury/Concentration: Moderate Rotation Difficulty, High Burst and Low Sustained Damage

 

Marauder/Sentinel PvP Viability:

As it presently stands, Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are performing well in Solo Ranked and Group Ranked PvP, respectively. We target a 50% win rate for each Discipline in PvP, and Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are slightly above this ideal win rate. Carnage/Combat is the seventh most effective Discipline (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is right on target. Annihilation/Watchman is ranked seventh in Solo Ranked PvP (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is equally on target. Additionally, Carnage/Combat is currently in one of the top 5 Group Ranked PvP class compositions, and this composition has an 82.6% win rate. While win rates are not the sole variable that we balance PvP performance from, these numbers provide evidence of Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman viability in broad PvP scenarios.

 

Fury/Concentration is in the lower half of the PvP spectrum. Like other classes that are underperforming, this is, and shall continue to be, addressed in upcoming class balance updates.

 

While we plan to adjust Marauders/Sentinels in future updates, we do not expect to see any Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines receiving significant damage output increases. Each of the Disciplines is presently performing at our desired DPS markers, and we plan to focus on Utility in the future. Specifically, mobility and self-healing improvements are currently being tested. We’ll keep you up to date on changes in the coming weeks.

 

It should be noted that PvP success is continually changing as updates reach live and the community learns new strategies with their classes.

Looking forward, we will continue to incrementally improve the status of Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines that are not performing to satisfaction. This is the perspective that we hold for all Disciplines across all classes.

 

We will continue to collect constructive feedback from the threads, concerning all classes, and apply improvements through our continual class balancing updates.

 

-The SWTOR Combat Team

 

 

What I do want changed is the DoT Spread for Annihilation, We've all come to a consensus that smash is awful, non rotational and really clunky, Ive had this idea and would like to see what you guys think:

 

Bloody Sabers - "Casting Annihilate, Vicious Throw, and Vicious Slash on a target affected by Rupture and Force Rend will now spread them to all targets within 10m. This Effect can't occur more than once every 10 secs."

 

Smash is on a 12 sec CD and rupture is 12 sec duration and Force Rend is 18 sec, so i dont see a 2 sec difference being OP at all, and These abilities are rotational and would flow more smoothly into our rotation while giving us better dot spread application to increase our survivability in PvP and PvE. Fell free to disagree with me completely if you do think this would be Mega OP for some reason.

 

Heres me putting faith in your post Bioware, dont mess it up

--Atrixx @ The Ebon Hawk--

--Marauder Main--

--Marauder Playtime: 175 days 10 hours