Scoundrel ranting

[Armisaell]

So... does anyone other than me and a few friends have problems with operatives/scoundrels being absolutely *********** overpowered ?

Nevermind the spec -and I'm gonna exagerate a bit on this... or not- but being able to nail you down with stealth, roots, op crits, armor penetration, and if you survive all this by a somehow merciful miracle, they HEAL THEMSELVE while continuing their dps on you.

If you ever manage to encounter only healer specs, you can just watch and enjoy the show while they heal a full team and run all around without being bothered by anything. When you're in a not-so-idiot team for once, you can hope a little focus on them, they don't even care, just vanish/ evade/ roll, and come back two seconds after.

 

This is after having a nice showdown with a 5 scoundrels team on Novare AND Alderaan, where they didn't give **** about our focus, took three nodes (two on Alderaan, yay us.) and just hold us hostages like that.

[Aumvaar]

I won't say they're over-powered, but I will say that I usually have more difficulty dealing with them than most other classes. But I'm an OP Sorcerer, so there's that

[ace_boogie]

They're only scary in packs

[mmmbuddah]

I would say the operative to scoundrel ratio is a bit higher to be honest. For every scoundrel there is a boat load of operatives. As a player who has recently given up on commando, and moved to scoundrel / gunslinger, I can say with 100 % certainty that the class is a bit ridiculous in certain situations.

[jauvtus]

So... does anyone other than me and a few friends have problems with operatives/scoundrels being absolutely *********** overpowered ?

Nevermind the spec -and I'm gonna exagerate a bit on this... or not- but being able to nail you down with stealth, roots, op crits, armor penetration, and if you survive all this by a somehow merciful miracle, they HEAL THEMSELVE while continuing their dps on you.

If you ever manage to encounter only healer specs, you can just watch and enjoy the show while they heal a full team and run all around without being bothered by anything. When you're in a not-so-idiot team for once, you can hope a little focus on them, they don't even care, just vanish/ evade/ roll, and come back two seconds after.

 

This is after having a nice showdown with a 5 scoundrels team on Novare AND Alderaan, where they didn't give **** about our focus, took three nodes (two on Alderaan, yay us.) and just hold us hostages like that.

 

As sent I only hate snipers more But seriously speaking, they aren't that OP. You just need to know how to defeat them *cough* immobilize all the time *cough*. Btw ops didn't ask for the hot heals, most of them preferred the casted heal. They aren't the FOTM class, those are pt, sorc and ASSA.

[JouerTue]

the dps is good but can be countered easy enough..

about healers..........people fraking learn to interupt those kolto waves..and don't forget them completely when they vanish..they are not going to leave the wz

[Derzelaz]

When it comes to scoundrels/operatives, it really depends on the players. A bad player will just annoy you, while a good player will kill every other class in a 1v1.

[detora]

So... does anyone other than me and a few friends have problems with operatives/scoundrels being absolutely *********** overpowered ?

Nevermind the spec -and I'm gonna exagerate a bit on this... or not- but being able to nail you down with stealth, roots, op crits, armor penetration, and if you survive all this by a somehow merciful miracle, they HEAL THEMSELVE while continuing their dps on you.

If you ever manage to encounter only healer specs, you can just watch and enjoy the show while they heal a full team and run all around without being bothered by anything. When you're in a not-so-idiot team for once, you can hope a little focus on them, they don't even care, just vanish/ evade/ roll, and come back two seconds after.

 

This is after having a nice showdown with a 5 scoundrels team on Novare AND Alderaan, where they didn't give **** about our focus, took three nodes (two on Alderaan, yay us.) and just hold us hostages like that.

 

I'm curious what class you play? Operative (all specs) has IMO the highest skill cap in the game currently (although that isn't saying much nowadays). What may appear as "op" is usually quite calculated. Granted, Concealment's rotation was dumbed down in 3.0 so even a monkey can put up good burst, but knowing how to survive and be a real offensive threat on an Op takes a lot of awareness.

 

As for Operative DPS, roll is very powerful and one of their best defensive CDs. Since it is on the GCD, thats a GCD they aren't directly attacking you. If they're Concealment, they resist everything for 1.5 after each roll. You simply don't attack/CC them during this time. If they happen to double roll away, that's good for you: they're retreating, and for the next 10 seconds they're susceptible to getting pooped on. Stun locking an Operative is probably the easiest way to kill them, or at the very least forcing a CC break/Camo. Keep track of their use of DCDs, and focus them before their breaker has come off CD.

 

If you're going against a Lethality Operative, you probably shouldn't waste your time tunneling them until they get in close to spam Cull. Their DoTs did not scale well at all in 3.0, no Explosive Probe for burst, and generally speaking they aren't a big threat. Unless you can root or chain stun a Leth Op and burst him down, they'll lolroll away and heal to full.(if you're not aware their roll procs a free Kolto Infusion once every 10sec). Remember, Operative's self healing is all on the GCD, so those are GCDs they are not attacking.

 

Operative healing is powerful but is quite bad when dealing with burst damage. The best way to deal with Operative healers is to CC them whenever they don't have full resolve. Their HoTs will fall off and their team will die soon enough. In PuG regs this isn't very easy since everyone is just hitting buttons with no coordination, but try to do your part.

 

I realize it's frustrating to play against 5 operatives because they're so sneaky. However, I'd be willing to bet that you'd be equally frustrated going against 5 AP PT's.

[muhidin]

I'd be exaggerating if I said that even a half-decent operative is damn near impossible to pin down and kill on my mm sniper. but they're our hard counter so I can accept that. but for every good operative or scoundrel there are 5 or 6 bad ones who don't know how to kite, heal and los and get themselves global'd. I think pvping with other classes gives you a lot of perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of other classes sorting out the truly OP ones from those who shine in certain conditions and environments. Right now it just seems crazy because there are so many of them and they love traveling around warzones in packs with shadows and assassins.

[Fellow-Canadian]

I love playing my scrapper scoundrel because I feel I can kill anybody and survive anything. But like it was mentioned above the class has a really high skill cap. A scoundrel's survival in PVP has a lot more to do with player skill than passive defenses.

[TheJollyRogers]

A good operative is about the rolls, generally.

 

A 1v1 against a competent operative will generally be a loss for any other class, but here's a few tips to keep in mind:

 

1. Roll cannot be used when an operative is immobilized or hindered. Without roll, an operative/scoundrel loses their best defensive ability.

2. The primary burst from an operative will come from the combination of Volatile Substance/Blood Boiler + Backstab/Backblast. The first is a debuff placed on you and the second is an attack that explodes the debuff on you. If you have that debuff on you and the operative/scoundrel is moving towards your back, get ready for burst.

3. Many operatives/scoundrels tend to roll when they vanish. If you try to catch one who has just vanished, try to aim your attack about 10 meters ahead. They may also be tricky and reverse direction after cloaking.

4. Don't mistake Crippling Slice/Skank Shot for a stun. It can be kind of deceiving because you lose the ability to turn, but you can still cast abilities.

5. Save your stun breaker for flashbang and don't waste it on the 4 second Debilitate/Dirty Kick. An operative/scoundrel will generally hardcast a heal, load up on HoTs and prepare a burst combo during a flashbang. You don't want to let that happen.

 

Hope any of that helps.

Edited May 31, 2015 by TheJollyRogers

[Dumack]

I always love when people tout "player skill" in a MMO lol

 

You mash buttons... end of story.

 

In any case, I can manage to take them down with every burst skill possible. I think the majority of these classes could trade more than a few things from each other for the sake of balance.

 

You put stealth / heals / dps all in one class; of course you're going to see tuns of people gravitate towards ridiculous survivability

[Adovir]

How Scoundrel(dps) is generally viewed, 8v8 stompers 4v4 hinderance. They have a great tool set for large spread out fights, which they are designed for, and in small death matches they fall off quick because everything is too crowded

[Warlord_Maliken]

all i know is concealment operatives are borrrrring only really because theres this weird counter-intuitive incentive to initiate combat from afar with Corrosive Dart on everybody, before actually engaging in melee. They need to remove corrosive dart and instead let one of our melee abilities apply a nice bleed. who cares if we suck at aoe damage, find a way to make it work, its better than having a paradoxical incentive.

[Adovir]

all i know is concealment operatives are borrrrring only really because theres this weird counter-intuitive incentive to initiate combat from afar with Corrosive Dart on everybody, before actually engaging in melee. They need to remove corrosive dart and instead let one of our melee abilities apply a nice bleed. who cares if we suck at aoe damage, find a way to make it work, its better than having a paradoxical incentive.

 

No... No... No please no never do this, this is wrong on many levels

[TheJollyRogers]

How Scoundrel(dps) is generally viewed, 8v8 stompers 4v4 hinderance. They have a great tool set for large spread out fights, which they are designed for, and in small death matches they fall off quick because everything is too crowded

We're doing fine in 4v4. Not at the same level as sorcs/sins/pts, but holding our own. Our excellent burst makes us quite good in the current season 4v4 setup.

 

all i know is concealment operatives are borrrrring only really because theres this weird counter-intuitive incentive to initiate combat from afar with Corrosive Dart on everybody, before actually engaging in melee.

Uh. I don't play Lethality so I don't know if that is something they do, but certainly Concealment doesn't work like this. Only time I use corrosive dart is to keep someone in combat or to explode Volatile Substance from range.

Edited May 31, 2015 by TheJollyRogers

[stridemachine]

We're doing fine in 4v4. Not at the same level as sorcs/sins/pts, but holding our own. Our excellent burst makes us quite good in the current season 4v4 setup.

.

 

I've been searching for good videos of OP dps in ranked. Please post videos against good teams/solo que'ers -- I'd love to see this!

[Adovir]

We're doing fine in 4v4. Not at the same level as sorcs/sins/pts, but holding our own. Our excellent burst makes us quite good in the current season 4v4 setup.

.

 

I wasn't too clear but yeah we do fine in solo, my point being that our skill set is much better in a larger enviroment where there is a lot more breathing room. In arenas, which are death matches, it's usually everyone stacked on one another the defenses that we have are not very optimal and you must decide to burst or stay alive or to keep an ally alive so your overall effectiveness is decided by how well the player can do a mix of healing/damage/defense at the same time without doing too much of one with it hurting the team too much. If you tunnel dps for 1-2 globals too long you will find yourself dead or you may have missed a key opertunity to keep an ally alive, thus being a detrement to your team for a lapse in thinking for a moment. They aren't bad it's just that they aren't optimal at all and most of your reg stars will die off quickly in ranked because they are 2 totally different play styles, one is to kill the other team as fast as possible and the other is to beat the team through objectives which killing isn't 100% needed

[TheJollyRogers]

I've been searching for good videos of OP dps in ranked. Please post videos against good teams/solo que'ers -- I'd love to see this!

http://www.twitch.tv/mosh47

 

He plays both solo and group ranked.

[J_McSkill]

all i know is concealment operatives are borrrrring only really because theres this weird counter-intuitive incentive to initiate combat from afar with Corrosive Dart on everybody, before actually engaging in melee. They need to remove corrosive dart and instead let one of our melee abilities apply a nice bleed. who cares if we suck at aoe damage, find a way to make it work, its better than having a paradoxical incentive.

 

Not sure what you're talking about. There is absolutely no incentive to initiate combat with corrosive dart. If you want the rotation I use, feel free to PM me.

 

Also, boring is very subjective. I main a VG and have played almost all melee ac's in ranked and I can say without a doubt, I find concealment ops to be the most fun to play. They are a very high risk, high reward class. You screw up and use your cc break too early and it's GG, you could go from 100-0 in the span of one 4 second hardstun. I also find that learning when and how to roll is also very interesting and has a very high skill cap (which I'm still learning). Rolling just as that PT's thermal detonator is about to go off or just as that Sniper is about to finish his Ambush is very satisfying. But, if you mis-time any of that the fight can go very bad very quickly.

 

All that said, a classes "fun factor" is just a matter of opinion and everyone is entitled to their own. I just felt that the reason you gave for the class being boring was misinformed.

[muhidin]

A good operative is about the rolls, generally.

 

A 1v1 against a competent operative will generally be a loss for any other class, but here's a few tips to keep in mind:

 

1. Roll cannot be used when an operative is immobilized or hindered. Without roll, an operative/scoundrel loses their best defensive ability.

2. The primary burst from an operative will come from the combination of Volatile Substance/Blood Boiler + Backstab/Backblast. The first is a debuff placed on you and the second is an attack that explodes the debuff on you. If you have that debuff on you and the operative/scoundrel is moving towards your back, get ready for burst.

3. Many operatives/scoundrels tend to roll when they vanish. If you try to catch one who has just vanished, try to aim your attack about 10 meters ahead. They may also be tricky and reverse direction after cloaking.

4. Don't mistake Crippling Slice/Skank Shot for a stun. It can be kind of deceiving because you lose the ability to turn, but you can still cast abilities.

5. Save your stun breaker for flashbang and don't waste it on the 4 second Debilitate/Dirty Kick. An operative/scoundrel will generally hardcast a heal, load up on HoTs and prepare a burst combo during a flashbang. You don't want to let that happen.

 

Hope any of that helps.

 

 

Great tips jolly, as a sniper I often torture myself by targeting ops in warzones just to get some practice against them and I always make the mistake of breaking their stun as opposed to flashbang. I have to chase them a lot so entrench is not so useful and they know this.

 

Immobilizing an op is difficult because they can cleanse physical debuffs and just roll away. I'm pretty sure my leg shot is cleansable. I also try to keep corrosive dart on them so it ticks when they stealth, unless they have evasion procced on stealth but it's surprisingly effective even if they can effectively cleanse tech effects too.

 

Good tips about the roll positioning too, I always make the mistake of aoeing the spot where an op vanished rather where he/she is going to be.

 

I try to time my ambush for when they're stunned or flashbanged so they can't dodge it as well.

Edited May 31, 2015 by muhidin

[Warlord_Maliken]

Not sure what you're talking about. There is absolutely no incentive to initiate combat with corrosive dart. If you want the rotation I use, feel free to PM me.

 

Yeah im #1 damage every match i really dont need tips thank you though. secondly, there absolutely, objectively, is incentive to applying corrosive dart from a good safe distance before initiating in melee combat in regular warzones. Of course this isn't the case with ranked matches, doh. sorry i may not have posted that before. In warzones, its certainly the most EFFICIENT way of maximizing damage against the enemy team. This is why i say one of the stabs should apply a powerful bleed or something (melee).

 

Also, boring is very subjective.

 

Not necessarily. people who are third eye blind will be entertained by mere artwork and titles, disregarding the complexities of certain data fields like 'concentrated coolness' (in this case, unique gameplay experiences b/t the classes). they'll get bored or have a blast on whim of fortune. when you see all the variables its very clear that it isn't as fun as it should be, objectively.

Perhaps i didn't give enough data. Thats understandable. When it comes down to seeing all the variables clearly and applying the analysis in the realm of regular warzones, the subjectivity of whether the class is fun or not is certainly determined by the player's brain. Some people don't care about extensive information, about synapses, or cognitively assess their arsenal relative to the other classes. A child's mind subjectively thinks its fun to play with Legos. An adult doesn't play with legos, its subjectively boring. I'm talking about objectivity in regard to relativity and primary directives. i.e. it is certainly colossally more effective for my concealment operative to corrosive dart everyone before engaging in melee. this again, is paradoxical to the intended role and gameplay style of this advanced class. its a designer flaw that likely only occurs in pvp and even then, regular warzones (not ranked) - but nevertheless a flaw. It is objectively flawed at heart if you put these things in to perspective. Most don't.

 

I main a VG and have played almost all melee ac's in ranked and I can say without a doubt, I find concealment ops to be the most fun to play.

 

yeah, as stated previously i am referring to warzones. no doubt concealment operatives are a blast in ranked, and DO NOT spread corrosive dart in the matches lol.

 

They are a very high risk, high reward class.

 

utter nonesense in regard to regular warzones. Your comment is probably very true in ranked.

 

You screw up and use your cc break too early and it's GG, you could go from 100-0 in the span of one 4 second hardstun. I also find that learning when and how to roll is also very interesting and has a very high skill cap (which I'm still learning). Rolling just as that PT's thermal detonator is about to go off or just as that Sniper is about to finish his Ambush is very satisfying. But, if you mis-time any of that the fight can go very bad very quickly.

 

yep no doubt. ^^^

Edited June 1, 2015 by Warlord_Maliken

[foxmob]

They're only scary in packs

 

class stacking is frustrating all the way around. but stealth for sure up that frustration. lol

[WannEras]

Middle tree operatives/scoundrels are certain becoming a massive pain in the *** with this LOS kiting crap they are doing to stop node caps all match, literally nothing you can do unless you're a stealther yourself or half your team turns up to global them.

 

The roll cool down should at least be upped to 15 secs like slinger/sniper, that 5 seconds makes such a difference.

Edited June 1, 2015 by WannEras

[Exeeter]

the hilarious part in all this is that Operatives/scoundrels' absolute and complete bane is attached to what is largely considered the worst class in the game