Update on Sentinel and Marauder

[Aluvi]

Hey they finally listened about Transcendence. And they combined both Undying Utilities.

 

And, they brought Annihilation back to it's original AIDS state on the PTS when no matter what you did all of your abilties conflicted and the rotation made no sense. On top of that, Swift Demise no longer makes sense. Sigh.

 

Yeah, uh.. those changes to the utilities were two of my top priority changes. I'm... actually kind of impressed. Although... I'm not really sure that it's going to push Fury Mara up to where Rage Juggy will be, considering they will have constant unstoppable up, along with their myriad of other better abilities (better rotation, not having to rely on attacking to get their raging burst buff up, taunts, intercede, push, etc). The one saving grace might be predation spam while in Fury spec.

 

I don't know how this will compare to post shoulder cannon nerf PTs and post Hatred nerf assassins and post TK nerf sages. Should be a much more even playing field in my opinion. Personally, I actually like Fury a lot, and these changes might be enough to make it... a "good" spec. It might not be enough for Carnage, but 6s CC immunity after Force Crush combined with a 30s root break cooldown on fast pred and 2:30 7 sec undying (which is still too high imo, needs to be 2 mins flat so that it can possibly be used twice per arena, or even 1:30 like the jugg godmode defensive).

 

People that are saying that they don't want the new pred for Carnage should also remember that berserk not only is a "marginal" dps increase by allowing an extra ability into the gore window, but it also reduces the cooldown of anything activated during it - the new 30s cooldown predation for instance, and gore, etc. Using fury for predation is a bigger dps loss than people realize. I see huge differences in my dps output.

 

I'd like to see Ravage make you straight up immune to all stun / cc etc while casting it in Carnage. That would make it very desirable to use on cooldown. Maybe a very slight buff as well - say 20% more damage.

 

It makes me chuckle that they are changing annihilation. I never felt that the spec was the problem, if we're talking pve. The problem was the extremely clunky dot spread mechanic (putting it on smash didn't make much sense, as smash is horrible in the rotation), and overall the operation boss fight mechanics themselves being overly punishing to melee. It isn't JUST marauders that no one takes to ops. I did great dps with mine in our ops - always on top with our TK sage. That is, until we got into hard mode and then a couple of fights basically made me invalid.

 

We'll see I guess, it's going to be interesting.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Aluvi

[PallyHk]

I'm looking at this from a PVE perspective. Here is what I would like to see:

 

Marauders: Dual saber mastery and Ravage on the move for all marauders as Utilities.

 

Annihilation:

Please give us some self heal. Either as a thing on dots, or something akin to Leeching Strike of assassins.

Synchronise Rupture and Force Rend to the same cooldown for easier rotation. Maybe 12-12 seconds?

 

For the lost DPS, I think Annihilation should be buffed. It is an Annihilator's best friend for taking out enemies quick in PVE and its a great sustained dps for bosses.

 

Anything annihilation does, Vengeance Jugg does it better. So maybe make an ability reset Ravage or sunder the target? Vengeance is basically better Annihilation.

 

For Fury and Carnage, I did not play them well enough to know what changes they need. So I won't give changes without knowing the disciplines.

 

Marauders don't have ranged classes's mobility and damage uptime.

 

So when a ranged deals X damage per second, it deals it for 10 seconds in 10 seconds.

A marauders deals X damage, but deals it for 5 out of 10 seconds. So to be ON PAR with the ranged, it needs to do 2X damage.

This is an example to explain the problem with the almost purely melee class. When a Mara dodges an AOE, it cant deal damage. A Bounty hunger can. An agent can. A Sorcerer or even Assassin can. Maras can't.

 

Of course, balancing this isn't easy. Maybe Marauders could get a stacking bonus as long as they are in combat, but are not hitting something instead of a simple damage buff. That way their damage would not be OP with full uptime, but if their uptime suffered, their damage would increase exponentially to counter that.

Edited April 17, 2015 by PallyHk

[qwopicus]

I'm looking at this from a PVE perspective. Here is what I would like to see:

 

Marauders: Dual saber mastery and Ravage on the move for all marauders as Utilities.

 

No, no more *********** utilities. We have enough mandatory choices as it is.

[Valzanik]

With new Changes On the PTS i applaud Bio Ware for preforming changes in response to the community in the shortest time frame to date since launch. Historically it has take you(BioWare) to long to implement changes. So First of thank you for the fast response.

 

2nd: the changes implemented are on the correct path. Improving quality of life is something we desperately needed. Very much appreciated. However, as they changes are very much accepted it still isn't quite what we need. There needs to be 1 more change/implementation ON THE CURRENT PTS!

 

Defensive Forms-Needs to be baseline, End of story it must be done.

 

Defensive forms baseline or make it 30% while stunned or 15% from periodic damage

 

Move Expunging Camo Skillful talent or Tie it into the Phantom Talent

 

Grant us another option for a utility but forcing us to take Improved Udying talent expunge Camo and Super pred and the new pred talent. these are all things we must be able to take. Please don't hinder us with talents that are necessary for us to compete

 

In utilities we are suffering from being to take talents that used to be baseline.