Game Update 4.0 Class Changes: Jedi Knight + Sith Warrior

[Kaizersan]

Sure, but I already put my back to walls or solid objects to counter knock backs, been doing it for years. Creative solution was found and applied to that problem long ago.

 

You don't always have that option especially in pvp or boss fights where you can't tank them against the wall.

[Lord_of_Mu]

You don't always have that option especially in pvp or boss fights where you can't tank them against the wall.

 

True, but you also have the option to use one of your two leaps to get back into the fight.

[firestarter]

I dont care if this gets me banned from the forums but let me get this straight:

 

YOU´LL FINALLY GIVE MERCS AND COMMANDOS A 20M DISENGAGE IN 4.0

 

AND THEN YOU GIVE WARRIORS AND KNIGHTS YET ANOTHER DAMN LEAP???!?!?!? REALLY???

 

GG BIoware GG!

[SithKoriandr]

I dont care if this gets me banned from the forums but let me get this straight:

 

YOU´LL FINALLY GIVE MERCS AND COMMANDOS A 20M DISENGAGE IN 4.0

 

AND THEN YOU GIVE WARRIORS AND KNIGHTS YET ANOTHER DAMN LEAP???!?!?!? REALLY???

 

GG BIoware GG!

 

here's hoping my Shadow finally gets a lunge attack!

[BrintoSFJ]

here's hoping my Shadow finally gets a lunge attack!

 

Hope it is not a lung but a teleport like ability. Shadow/assassin teleports to the target and does X damage to the primary target and X/2 total damage to 5 more enemies in 5 meter radius of the primary target. In a defensive stance it will generate threat, in offensive stance it will do more damage.

 

Would be really cool!!!

[BrintoSFJ]

absolutely none. In fact it takes away the reason for many to even try to level. The little prizes are what makes the grind worth it for some. Telling them that now they have to spend even more time to get the same things they already have is ...well, laughable.

 

I understood the nerf at 55-60 but not this, not twice in a row, it is just disheartening. No new talent choice at 65 is just terrible.

[trancejeremy]

Looking at a thesaurus, we have a lot of words that could have been substitutded for strike

 

bump, collision, concussion, crash, impingement, jar, jolt, jounce, kick, shock, slam, smash, wallop

Related Words blow, buffet, hit, knock, punch, rap, slap, thump; bashing, battering, bludgeoning, clobbering, hammering, lambasting, licking, pounding, pummeling (also pummelling), thrashing; contact, encounter, meeting, touch, aggression, assault, attempt, blitz, blitzkrieg, charge, coup de main, descent, offense (or offence), offensive, onset, onslaught, raid, rush

 

Okay, maybe there aren't a lot of good chjoices there, but "Blade Dance" seems completely unconnected to the class or the animation. Basically he's just sticking the saber in him. "Master Stab" might make more sense.

[Kakisback]

Not a fan of giving out 3 new utilities, but then giving no additional points to spend...

 

Also not a fan of dot on ravage for carnage. Not every spec needs a dot.

 

Anni is still boring and a shadow of its former glory.

 

Master Strike rename is silly- it's been that way for years, and nobody cares that it technically has "strike" in the name.

 

I'd rather cc immunity not proliferate further, but I guess I'm tentatively ok with the new cc immunity on saber ward

 

The new ability seems fine and cool. Kinda clunky that there's going to be a talent for both this new ability, and camo, that basically does the same thing (make it break impairing effects). I see no reason why you'd ever pick the camo break utility anymore, now that this one exists.

[Kaizersan]

True, but you also have the option to use one of your two leaps to get back into the fight.

 

Given how many root's exist in the game in pvp you might not be able to leap and with leap you still need a target to leap to and if lets say in pvp the person that rooted you line of sighted you then you can use the dash to get closer or say in pvp you are running to get a heal from one of the side heal things in void star you can dash to grab it like op's do with rolls.

[Lord_of_Mu]

Given how many root's exist in the game in pvp you might not be able to leap and with leap you still need a target to leap to and if lets say in pvp the person that rooted you line of sighted you then you can use the dash to get closer or say in pvp you are running to get a heal from one of the side heal things in void star you can dash to grab it like op's do with rolls.

 

At this point I feel like we're in a race to the bottom. I'm sure this new charge will be a great win for pvpers. But I am most certainly not a pvper.

 

Looking at a thesaurus, we have a lot of words that could have been substitutded for strike

 

Okay, maybe there aren't a lot of good chjoices there, but "Blade Dance" seems completely unconnected to the class or the animation. Basically he's just sticking the saber in him. "Master Stab" might make more sense.

 

Master's Onslaught or Master's Assault both sound pretty decent. Not that the name change really bothers me. It was one of those, "mage armor is getting a new buff icon" changes.

[Asheris]

 

Okay, maybe there aren't a lot of good chjoices there, but "Blade Dance" seems completely unconnected to the class or the animation. Basically he's just sticking the saber in him. "Master Stab" might make more sense.

 

I disagree. It's very connected to the thing the Jedi actually does. Yes, he stabs his opponent with a sword but he is doing two rotations while swinging his lightsaber - he looks like he is dancing.

 

Why do you people see dancing only as a form of ballet? Swordfighting isn't easy when you stand your ground, it's even harder and more effective when you move around, "dance" if you prefer. It's a form of art I believe the Jedi would hone while the Sith use more blunt, brutal forms of attack.

[Karkais]

3) to all the others who think these new changes are the end of the world maybe wait and see if this new ability will be useless

 

Its not so much about these particular changes, than dev's decision to give us a superficial level cap raise that doesn't actually improve our characters (except in an automatic add numbers to stuff kind of way just to make sure low lvl peons cant take on same mobs). They have made their stance clear, and that is that they take the easy way out by refusing to change our characters because they cant be bothered about balancing them.

 

I have always hated linear progression, themepark mmos, pretty much everything SWTOR is built on. I would vastly prefer sandbox mmos but theres basically none to choose from. Devs are now just recapping every reason in the book for me to hate this game. I have been hanging on mostly cause it is still star wars and I can play a Sith, purely flavor reasons. If they had given this info a month ago I would have seriously considered actually not paying the subscription during this time.

 

In other words, their relative silence on details of the expansion feels like they are just trying to milk people for their money by promising stuff but not actually delivering anything of value.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Karkais

[Yezzan]

I have no issues with the names (mad dash/Blade Dance), which are trivialities that hardly merit a discussion.

 

I think the combat team does not understand the problem.

1. PvP- too much CC
   
2. PvE- Difficulty staying on target (unfavorable ops mechanic)
   

 

The obvious solution is to nerf CC, in PvP. This could be incorporated into the resolve system. Increase the duration of resolve twofold (or something like that). CCs would be converted to slows while you are in the resolve phase.

 

As for PVE, reduce the radius of AOE circles, and make it so that a melee will have some sort of safe zone within a 4m range to attack. So, at no point in time should melee be required to run 30m, away from the boss just to avoid AOE.

 

I don't understand why we are getting new utilities but no additional utliity points. This just bloats up thje utility system and is incongruous with the reasons for removing skill trees. They could have, easily, incorporated the "new" utilities into the existing ones, since we will not be getting additional points.

 

Merge Unwavering resolve with debilitation, unremmiting or battlefield command.

Inspired Focus- I have no idea why this is tied to inspiration instead of Zen or Transcendence. Could be merged with Displacement ( only sentinels benifit from this utility).

 

Cut Loose- could be merged with Daunting Prescence or Peaceful Focus.

 

Instead of messing with the tiers of skill acquisition, just give the new ability at level 64, and rearrange the tiers at which you can upgrade your skills (from rank 1 to rank 2, etc).

Edited September 5, 2015 by Yezzan
typos galore

[skarlson]

I can't tell you how disappointing this is. One of the main reasons for moving to Disciplines was to avoid having so many key powers come later and later in a character's career because of level cap increases. And what do you do? The very next time you do a level cap increase, you push everything back. Especially annoying is that everyone when they log in in 4.0 will have lost a utility choice that they had the day before.

 

If you don't want inflation, then just don't give a choice at 65. Or make it some weak passive that we get.

 

Sigh....

 

This. I, and I'm sure most others and very likely EVERYONE, assumed there would be another skill point. Instead we actually LOSE a utility point and your reasoning is so that we get something for hitting 65??? W...T...F??? Your big ability gain as a reward for 65 is to get back the utility point you ALREADY had prior to it being TAKEN? You could just as easily make the skill cap 64 and leave utilities the same. This is beyond ridiculous and is just sloppy lazy design. The whole POINT of leveling is to get MORE powerful not LESS or the SAME. Honestly, you wonder why servers that were FOTM months ago are now on the verge of death? This kind of poor design decision is EXACTLY why.

[GythralSWTOR]

It aint broke - dont fix it!

 

Whoever thought that Oct 19th a character can do x, Oct 20th that character cannot and is effectively 8% weaker than they were the day before needs to rethink things (fast)!

Is everything in the game also taking an 8% hit

 

Yon don't want power creep, do not run an MMO!

 

And I now know why you did not want this out in the real world during the marketing phase!!!

[Karkais]

 

Yon don't want power creep, do not run an MMO!

 

Or at least linear progression themepark MMO. But this isn't even linear progression. The progression has flat out STOPPED.

 

I would much rather prefer ability bloat and less exciting PVE than our characters being effectively nerfed as they progress to give an illusion of achievement that doesn't actually exist.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Karkais

[Phesojss]

Stubborn, lazy and clueless changes and non changes ( number of total utility points, and up time on target the dash will not help as was their stated intention) no wonder this is free. Impact changes and issue solving would have required more resources and thought than the devs possess. NO class issues are solved for knights they remain the same.

 

I worry that without ANY public testing, and the stubborn vision of the devs to not have a power creep ( it was supposed to be fixed in 3.0 but the new abilities in some classes, led to large nerfs later) 4.0 will be an open Alpha.

The various dev teams have shown before they have coordination issues (combat vs operation design) It should be ok for the story, but I worry it will be a cluster for flash points and ops.

[SnoopyKitty]

I'm figuring at least 1 GCD, possibly a little more... so about 2 seconds of full damage immunity?

 

And I thoughts operatives can do it twice in a row? Granted operatives don't have nearly the total number of defensives that Knights do...

 

yeah right, we gut useless (rebuke), useless because on 3min cd (saber ward) and useless becaus only 4s and on 3min (gbtf).

 

Let see scoundrels:

- double roll (basicly get out of anything that hit you whenever you like)

- stealth (see above)

- troll white dmg users green bubble

- troll everyone white shield

- best hots of all dps classes

- superior burst to any other class

Edited September 5, 2015 by SnoopyKitty

[DalrisThane]

I'm not a smart or good player, far from it. I love Level increases in games because it's simple. Bigger numbers. New powers. Despite me hating EverQuest, they did Level increases in a way I liked. New numbers. New Powers.

 

When SWTOR increased L50 to L55 and all they did was "stretch" the abilities over a longer level span, I thought it was dev inexperience, or temporary. Then BW "stretched" the powers again from L55 to L60. And now again from L60 to L65.

 

I get it. It's not an "oops". It's Bioware's levelling plan for SWTOR

 

As per...

 

I can't tell you how disappointing this is. One of the main reasons for moving to Disciplines was to avoid having so many key powers come later and later in a character's career because of level cap increases. And what do you do? The very next time you do a level cap increase, you push everything back. Especially annoying is that everyone when they log in in 4.0 will have lost a utility choice that they had the day before.

 

If you don't want inflation, then just don't give a choice at 65. Or make it some weak passive that we get.

 

Sigh....

 

...and...

 

What's the point of raising the level caps when the actual cap on potential never changes? Either let our characters grow, or quit inflating the numbers pointlessly.

 

... I'm going to say something I've never said in my entire life of gaming...

 

Bioware, if this is how you do level increases, I'm against level increases in SWTOR from now on. (Wow. That hurt to say.)

 

Not that it'll matter. The changes likely come from the "suits", not the devs, but still. But I had to say it, for all the good it'll do.

Edited September 5, 2015 by DalrisThane

[LordCamTheGreat]

Sooo, annihilation isn't fixed, warriors and knights get an uncontrollable high cd charge, we don't get a new utility point, everything gets pushed back so classes stay pretty much the same,Blade dance isn't a master strike on the move, just some stupid rename that makes no sense, yeah my precise clunky series of attacks is definitely a blade dance....nope. Marauders/sentinels aren't getting back their old ravage/master dance damage.

All in all, nothing really new. Just disappointing pushbacks and renames.

[LordCamTheGreat]

And with that i just thought of a plan for pve and pvp.

PVE: allow hybridization and/or bring back old skill trees, cough cough annihilation 2.x, people get more replayability and customizability no matter what.

PVP: keep this no hybridization pushback style of game, lets the devs mess around with pvp without screwing over pve.

[Aldael]

New utililities look good (on paper) but unless you change cds, they wont make a difference for melee (sent/mara), name change is awfull (come on, you can do it better).

 

Also, and this is speculation, unless you change other classes significably, sents/mara will be underrated in pvp again (have you not learn anything from this last year?) (i heard something about teleporting for a ranged class?).

 

 

People, lets explain something about melee vs ranged. melee MUST be in that range to do damage (except for a very few skills that arent worthy, minimal damage or long cd to be worthy) vs range that can attack from wherever they want.

 

As a ranged class, you should kite or at least mantain distance, this can be done by having high mobility (instants casts, cc immunity) or by ccing your objective, NOT BOTH; the problem is that actually most ranged classes HAVE BOTH.

 

Unless you change that (and i dont think you will), this game balances to favour ranged.

[Glower]

I don't understand why we are getting new utilities but no additional utliity points. This just bloats up thje utility system and is incongruous with the reasons for removing skill trees. They could have, easily, incorporated the "new" utilities into the existing ones, since we will not be getting additional points.

 

Merge Unwavering resolve with debilitation, unremmiting or battlefield command.

Inspired Focus- I have no idea why this is tied to inspiration instead of Zen or Transcendence. Could be merged with Displacement ( only sentinels benifit from this utility).

 

Cut Loose- could be merged with Daunting Prescence or Peaceful Focus.

 

Instead of messing with the tiers of skill acquisition, just give the new ability at level 64, and rearrange the tiers at which you can upgrade your skills (from rank 1 to rank 2, etc).

 

... I'm going to say something I've never said in my entire life of gaming...

 

Bioware, if this is how you do level increases, I'm against level increases in SWTOR from now on. (Wow. That hurt to say.)

 

^this

Edited September 5, 2015 by Glower

[Costello]

Most of these changes are woefully inadequate.

 

But that aside what you really have to admire is BWs communication and community team, who post the information late on a Friday make one post which is nothing to do with the changes. Then post about a cantina tour cause the majority of the player base goes to these right? And then one about Cosplay??

 

I dont even think the stupidest fanboi could say this is good communication. The information was already out there yet we weren't allowed to talk about it cause it could cause confusion. What confusion this is what people were saying were the changes and low and behold its the exact same changes and then when it is finally revealed to be discussed the thread is ignored and we get a post of Cosplay???

 

The changes are poor and the way its been handled is poor. But even more disappointing in doing nothing to fix the class in end game is that the expansion brings with it a nerf (much as what happened a year ago with SOR) and you buy back what you already have. It feels like the development team is so small that they dont have sufficient budget to do more than one thing. So if they are adding story then they can't also add new mechanics for the extra levels so they just move the existing abilities up one step.

 

Though low and behold the CC team is busy putting out armor and vehicles from the next expansion, almost as if they know that come the November once the story has been played through anyone with any sense will unsubscribe for 6 months or a year till there is enough new chapters to last a month (or even a weekend), as only a few classes will be viable for end game content which is just releveled rehash of the old content that people have played since launch.

[DragonSire]

What insults? I merely made an observation based on the information presented. I consider Mad Dash an insult though, does that count?

I'd say so, if it is about the payers, and the story going forward. The they need to consider the needs of the players first, not take more away, and give some ridiculous new ability, with a stupid name.

 

Here's a thought...improve the engine, add features people want, animated hoods, faster travel, special movement abilities based on classes, (flight =bounty hunter, force leap = jedi, real stealth = smugglers etc..restricted where necessary of course) cloth physics. Offline crew skills management. More than 1 companion for flashpoints etc, without needing the GSI Bot.

 

For the change to companions, not needing to worry about gear, just give them special mods that scale, and then people who want to grind high gear still can. Pretty simple.

 

Better UI in things like collections. Half the time I cannot tell what's locked, unlocked, account wide unlocked etc.

 

Tons of small things that can be done, and they waste time on things that don't need to be.