PVP defenses, are we the problem or is it the current state of the game?

[Octagon]

After playing a few arenas (unranked) last night I came to the conclusion that it is in fact us.

 

Now I'll admit I'm pretty new to Commando/Merc and most of ya'll have way more experience than me but here's my take. To be at your most effective you need to be in the 20-30 meter range from the fight, any farther and your out of range. any closer and your re-spawning pretty quick. Arena's by their very nature are more closed in making it hard to get your distance right away. Couple that with the fact that there are so many line of sight obstacles in those things it's maddening. Toss in your lack of cc break and root/snare resistance plus the fact that the resolve bar has never...ever worked right and arena's are just a bad deal all around for us.

 

So my first reaction is, if your not going to fix the class at least allow players the opportunity to opt out of arenas. I'd be perfectly fine just playing in 8v8's.

 

Second if you want to fix the class without going hog wild, start with making overdrive work like the PT/VG version. It took a special kind of evil Dev to allow a class that needs to be close to the scrum a way out while leaving a class that needs space with no way out.

 

Or my favorite idea...have jet boost/whatever the trooper version name is just be the max distance like the T2 version and make it irresistable. Full resolve bar, Shadow resist, ... whatever, it doesn't matter, I hit the button and boom your flying. Hey assassin/shadow get irresistable dots, plus an escape. OP/Scoundrel have 2 escapes, Mara/Sent get and escape. And we just stand there like the big redneck kid taking a beat down.

[Grue_Hunter]

I had this thought occur to me in another thread but i thought i would post it here to see what the Merc/Mando community thinks...

 

In regard to our defensive issues in PVP, im starting to wonder if the problem is truly out class and its skill, or if its little more than a by product of the current game meta? What i mean by this is that is it that we are really in such a bad place, or have stuns and immunities to CC simple forced us into it? If the amount of stuns and CC were reduced, would we be in as bad a place?

 

To clarify.. do we have no DCD.. of course not, we have some, they are just relatively ineffective... now, why is that the case? Are they ineffective because they don't do anything, or is it simply that other classes are not affected by them?

 

I know from my own perspective 90% of my deaths come when i am stunned and cannot defend myself or am slowed and cannot get away in any form and i am unable to do the same to them.. which suggest there is simply far too much stuns and CCs in the game.

 

In addition, when i try to stun or CC or slow some classes. they simply have too many ways to either circumvent it, or are immune to it, suggesting that immunities and such are the root cause there.

 

I guess im just wondering if that were the case and they were reduced/removed.. would we really be in such a bad place?

 

I know, its moot.. we are where we are and have to deal with it... its just a thought i had in my head.

 

Mixed feelings here - first, let's remember that DPS-wise commandos and mercs are primarily a ranged DPS class - so they suffer issues similar to snipers. (I won't factor in sages/sorcs here because they have been given so many tools in their tool chest, not to mention mindless autocasting, that they have less to worry about.) You get close to them and they are vulnerable. (Hence the power of stuns and stealthed attacks, etc.)

 

Second, speaking from a healing perspective, there is a mismatch in terms of their heals (melee) and their defences (ranged). I have particularly noticed this post 3.3. When the devs made a minor change to Kolto Shots, it threw the healing sequence out of whack, because you now have to move closer to your heals (which are usually in melee) and are higher heat producing, but you become very vulnerable because your self-healing and heat dropping skill (Kolto Shots) is not sufficient to do both anymore. (Kolto missile just doesn't have enough sustained healing output to compete with similar AoE heals like the sorcs or scoundrels.)

 

Third, and finally, I think that the commando/merc community has been going about the defence complaints in the wrong way over the past few years. If you want a change to a class, then you have to do it in a way that somehow fits what the devs have in mind for the class. A lot of the suggestions I have seen were interesting - but they just didn't fit the philosophy behind the class.

[Gyronamics]

Third, and finally, I think that the commando/merc community has been going about the defence complaints in the wrong way over the past few years. If you want a change to a class, then you have to do it in a way that somehow fits what the devs have in mind for the class. A lot of the suggestions I have seen were interesting - but they just didn't fit the philosophy behind the class.

 

The developers don't share ****

 

At best they say they want to hear us argue about something while they say absolutely nothing

 

No guidelines, feedback incredibly rare and vague.

 

Just talk among yourself in this thread guys, we might just be faking interest to keep you busy but you'll never know right?

[Floplag]

Mixed feelings here - first, let's remember that DPS-wise commandos and mercs are primarily a ranged DPS class - so they suffer issues similar to snipers. (I won't factor in sages/sorcs here because they have been given so many tools in their tool chest, not to mention mindless autocasting, that they have less to worry about.) You get close to them and they are vulnerable. (Hence the power of stuns and stealthed attacks, etc.)

 

Second, speaking from a healing perspective, there is a mismatch in terms of their heals (melee) and their defences (ranged). I have particularly noticed this post 3.3. When the devs made a minor change to Kolto Shots, it threw the healing sequence out of whack, because you now have to move closer to your heals (which are usually in melee) and are higher heat producing, but you become very vulnerable because your self-healing and heat dropping skill (Kolto Shots) is not sufficient to do both anymore. (Kolto missile just doesn't have enough sustained healing output to compete with similar AoE heals like the sorcs or scoundrels.)

 

Third, and finally, I think that the commando/merc community has been going about the defence complaints in the wrong way over the past few years. If you want a change to a class, then you have to do it in a way that somehow fits what the devs have in mind for the class. A lot of the suggestions I have seen were interesting - but they just didn't fit the philosophy behind the class.

 

First, yeah obviously, however this is true of any ranged so you cant exclude the one given all the toys.. bottom line we have the worst or weakest toolset in this regard leaving up more vulnerable than the rest.

 

Second, i dont heal much so i wont comment there save to say that the overall class weaknesses affect all specs. healers always have more survivability comparative but that only prolongs the inevitable unless you get help or have the ability to escape the fight. Sorcs have a bubble immunity and emergency large heal, Operatives have vanish/roll... Mercs, well yeah. The issues are not unique to heals or dps and affect both.

 

Third, you could not be more wrong.. we have presenting things in every possible way, and have gotten nothing but an endless diet of static and ignored in return. How many different ways can we put things? If hey dont get it, they should ask and listen, all they have done is pay lip service and do whatever they wanted to anyway as proven by the most recent joke patch.

[Ershiin]

Definitely feel that more than anything, its not a lack of defensive tools, but rather everyone else's ability to negate those tools thats the issue.

The root on rocket punch hardly ever works (not in the buggy sense, but rather its usually instantly negated).

The overrides are usually only good for avoiding the last tick of a ravage and thats about it. Works decently against marauders, but they've got their own problems.

The knockback VERY rarely does anything effectual against any target you'd want to use it against.

I dont even bother with the concussion missile for defensive purposes, too slow, unreliable, and with a long CD.. Only good for offense when you dont want someone to help the guy you're trying to kill.

The net is just... For all the things that 1 ability is meant to cover, it should not be as easily negated as it is. Its about as important as a charge, only its about as effective as something like force leap would be if it had three times the cooldown and every ranged had the sniper's cover mechanic.

The shield, kolto overload, and selfhealing really is fine.. Its all the little things. (Like the overrides only granting slightly more movement speed than most melee these days have passively through utilities, so they can generally just run after you and keep up perfectly fine for the majority of its duration without having to expend any form of gap closers of their own)

[Flintfire]

People saying AP and Mercenary have same defensives have a point except powertechs have the best defensive in the game: mobility.

They can lolrun away and all their attacks are instant with no channels vulnerable to interrupts, plus all the good defensives are built into AP, namely Energy Redoubt and Stabilized Armor.

 

Mercs on the other hand have those 2 very powerful defensives as utilities on the top tier and if we pick that we lose mobility from thrill of the hunt, another vital utility and part of every mercenary specialization.

 

If we had 1 utility moved down to a lower tier, like Energy Redoubt mid tier, it would greatly increase our survivability.

[SpiritWalkerOP]

My experience as a Merc summed up by this dudes vid:

[Transcendent]

My experience as a Merc summed up by this dudes vid:

 

That covers it pretty well. 4.0 it's only going to get worse.

Edited August 12, 2015 by Transcendent