4.0 Warrior/Knight change discussion

[LunarAshes]

For those who haven't seen the dev blog yet, it's up. Let's keep this to critical but civilised discussion, please. I suggest you reread your post in Yoda's voice after you've written it. If it sounds like something he would never be able to say, don't say it.

 

Things to take away from this:

• 20m dash on a 45s cooldown
  
• 3 new utilities to choose from
  
• NO new utility points
  
• Passive DPS increases for each spec resulting in no rotational change
  
• Zero QoL tweaks
  

 

As far as I can see, these changes are very minimal and will barely affect Sentinels/Marauders in either PvP or PvE.

 

Let's split these changes into a separate PvP and PvE analysis:

 

PvE

 

Passive DPS increase for all trees.

Great, but not game changing. It's just there to help us achieve the required DPS checks for new content.

 

Mad Dash/Blade Blitz

Very situational, but depends on the damage values. Can be useful for dodging out of some red circles and dealing damage while getting into position but I don't expect the damage on this to be high enough to be significant.

 

New Tier 1 utility - Unflinching Determination/Unwavering Resolve

6s cc immunity on Saber Ward. Useless and will never be picked up. In a PvE situation where you really need to avoid a cc, Force Camouflage will achieve the same thing on a shorter cooldown, with higher damage reduction.

 

New Tier 2 utility - Thirst For Rage/Inspired Focus

Grants 12 rage/focus on Bloodthirst/Inspiration. Useful once every 5 minutes? Not always worth the utility point, which we already have a shortage of, but can have significant implications for opening rotations. Carnage/Combat will especially benefit from it, but Fury/Concentration already starts with a decent amount of resource and Annihilation/Watchman still needs to ramp up its Annihilate stacks early on. One question here is if this affects ALL Sentinels/Marauders in the group who have this utility, or just the one who casts Inspiration/Bloodthirst. If the latter, then this IS completely useless for you if you're not the guy casting it in a group with multiple Maras/Sents.

 

New Tier 3 utility - Through Victory/Cut Loose

Movement impairing effect break on Mad Dash/Blade Blitz. Useless in PvE.

 

That's literally all the changes we're getting. 5. I can count them on one hand (2 if I'm doing my Yoda re-read).

 

PvP

 

Passive DPS increase for all trees.

Great, but not game changing. New gear will mean higher HP on players and stronger heals. This will probably not be able to offset that significantly, so you can consider it to just be there to keep the status quo as it currently stands.

 

Mad Dash/Blade Blitz

No in-built root break, and a 45s cooldown. 20m distance and 100% defense chance while in the animation. This skill could have been so useful... If it wasn't on this pointless 45s cooldown. Sure, it'll still be useful but it won't solve the problems of Marauders being kited, out-cc'd and outmaneuvered. The comment about 100% defense is interesting. People have been assuming this skill would be like Agent roll, but why would it have 100% defense for its duration then? I can see it being literally a sprint, where your character runs 20m in about 2-3 seconds, which would further diminish its usefulness (not an instant gap closer/escape).

 

New Tier 1 utility - Unflinching Determination/Unwavering Resolve

6s cc immunity on Saber Ward. Again, great potential but suffers from the most AWFUL cooldown in the game. 6s every 3 minutes is not worth this utility point - that's a 3.3% uptime! I would still rather keep them in Stoic (ex-Defensive Forms), Root-Ravage and Unyielding (4 rage per cc taken, reduced cooldown on cc break). If this lasted the whole 12s duration of Saber Ward, I'd consider it. It would only be on par with exactly what Assassins/Shadows already have now, on a shorter cooldown (120s), and on a class that needs it far less.

 

New Tier 2 utility - Thirst For Rage/Inspired Focus

Useless in PvP, especially since you can't even use Bloodthirst/Inspiration in ranked.

 

New Tier 3 utility - Through Victory/Cut Loose

Movement impairing effect break on Mad Dash/Blade Blitz. Again, only every 45s? This is not worth the point and is completely overridden by the movement impairing break on Predation.

 

 

All in all, I'm thankful that Bioware has given us time to discuss these changes, because they really do need further examination. So far, this isn't going to change anything. Marauders and Sentinels will continue to be the most frustrating and lowest quality of life class in the game.

 

What are your thoughts, guys? Again, please remember to stay civil. This is about improving the game, not expressing your negative emotions. Thanks.

Edited September 5, 2015 by LunarAshes

[g_mK]

Inspiration giving 12 focus would greatly improve the opener in PVE for combat and watchman since you would start with a full bar of focus like in concentration.

 

The fact that there are little changes is not necessarily bad.

[Bahadori]

Purely speaking from a PvE point of view I think it's to early to lean one way or the other in regards to the new additions/changes to come. Since in PvE we have the luxury of knowing what is coming ahead of time I can think off the top of my head where each of these additions would be beneficial in response to a raid mechanic with the exception of gaining Focus/Rage on Inspiration/Bloodthirst usage (may possibly change rotational strategies as they relate to openers in some specs). With that said I can say with 100% certainty, now, that "Blade Dance" sounds less awesome than "Master Strike" Gonna miss me some Master Strike lol Edited September 4, 2015 by Bahadori

[Costello]

Inspiration giving 12 focus would greatly improve the opener in PVE for combat and watchman since you would start with a full bar of focus like in concentration.

 

The fact that there are little changes is not necessarily bad.

 

Ive posted on the main forum about how I don't think these changes do anywhere near enough to bring marauders/sents on par with the other dps classes.

 

As fun goes I like Carnage, in my head Im working overtime keeping close except when mechanics force me away i.e. when the hateful entity drops red energy of death on its feet so in my head my dps is great. When I see the results on parsec style systems I'm sure it must be lying and then I wonder how long before the raid no longer want me along for hard mode.

 

As for a utility to get 12 focus/rage once every 5 mins tied to a skill I want to fire when its most advantageous to the raid i.e. when healers or dps need a boost it sounds awful. I think it will be up there with the least purchased utility and I don't fully know how they can justify a utility for that.

[Alister]

I play both mara and warrior and i dont think that they really needed much so the changes to me are fine as is. maras got what everyone has been asking for in that we get cc immunity now and we got more ways to close the gap so no room to really *****. Warriors are in a very good place right now so all this just makes them even better. let me add im talking from a pvpers point of view i dont much care for pve.

 

But most ppl that ***** about classes usefulness in this game are the kind of ppl that would get mad at you if they were on fire and you had to piss on them to put it out so IE no matter what bioware does to try and fix the classes they will complain no matter what.

Edited September 4, 2015 by Alister

[Alister]

Mad Dash/Blade Blitz

No in-built root break, and a 45s cooldown. 20m distance and 100% defense chance while in the animation. This skill could have been so useful... If it wasn't on this pointless 45s cooldown. Sure, it'll still be useful but it won't solve the problems of Marauders being kited, out-cc'd and outmaneuvered. The comment about 100% defense is interesting. People have been assuming this skill would be like Agent roll, but why would it have 100% defense for its duration then? I can see it being literally a sprint, where your character runs 20m in about 2-3 seconds, which would further diminish its usefulness (not an instant gap closer/escape).

 

so maras, now with this, having leap, dash, vanish and a 50% run buff every 30 secs isnt enough to stop kiting? with the right utilities all these get rid of cc btw.

Edited September 4, 2015 by Alister

[LunarAshes]

so maras, now with this, having leap, dash, vanish and a 50% run buff every 30 secs isnt enough to stop kiting? with the right utilities all these get rid of cc btw.

 

In isolation, it sounds good on paper, but in the current state of the metagame, taking into account all the other classes and their respective mobility/kiting/escape/cc tools, it's just not enough to keep Marauders/Sentinels on even footing. Obviously, there has to be a top and a bottom class since everything CANNOT be equal while still remaining unique, but the disparity between said top and bottom in this game is too large. This is Bioware's opportunity to address that and it'll only happen with relevant feedback. This isn't about whining that Marauders/Sentinels aren't becoming OP.

 

Keep in mind that every other class is getting equivalent buffs (they just haven't been blogged about yet) and, based on unofficial sources we aren't allowed to discuss on these forums, they may or may not be significantly more powerful.

[LunarAshes]

Inspiration giving 12 focus would greatly improve the opener in PVE for combat and watchman since you would start with a full bar of focus like in concentration.

 

The fact that there are little changes is not necessarily bad.

 

Good point, I was in a bit of a rush since I had to head out but I've amended the main post now.

[DynamiCtagez]

All of our roootbreaks are STILL in heroic. Defensive Forms (aka Stoic/Brazen) STILL is a utility. 6sec immunity on a 3min CD, wow. These changes are exactly as expected. If the rest of the class changes matches the *cough*ed changes we saw a while ago, nothing will change. In fact, PvP balance will get even worse if they go through with the rest. Edited September 5, 2015 by DynamiCtagez

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

While I agree that 3.3% Uptime on the new 1st tier utility IS ******, it's better than nothing ok. That's 12s of CC immunity for Fury, and 6s for both Anni and Carnage that they never had.

[LunarAshes]

While I agree that 3.3% Uptime on the new 1st tier utility IS ******, it's better than nothing ok. That's 12s of CC immunity for Fury, and 6s for both Anni and Carnage that they never had.

 

But since we're not getting any extra utility points with the level cap increase, it's NOT better than nothing. We lose something to gain it, and it's not worth losing that something.

[Bonzenaattori]

Passive DPS increase for all trees.

Great, but not game changing. It's just there to help us achieve the required DPS checks for new content.

It's kinda of inevitable seeing as you scale from 60 to 65.

I would be surprised if there is NO increase.

 

 

Mad Dash/Blade Blitz

Very situational, but depends on the damage values. Can be useful for dodging out of some red circles and dealing damage while getting into position but I don't expect the damage on this to be high enough to be significant.

Sound's pretty haphazard but at the same time I suppose the idea is nice.

So long as they don't give minimum range stipulations on the ability I don't see the problem with this.

The damage pool (if any) and focus cost will play a major role in this ability too, it's mechanic alone won't decide much in terms of usefulness

 

New Tier 1 utility - Unflinching Determination/Unwavering Resolve

6s cc immunity on Saber Ward. Useless and will never be picked up. In a PvE situation where you really need to avoid a cc, Force Camouflage will achieve the same thing on a shorter cooldown, with higher damage reduction.

Well I cannot say I didn't see this comming. As far as I'm concerned this is a useless talent point.

So sure it's amazing for a melee and gives them solidarity. But in my perspective, I personally feel that this ability serves the purpose of stripping classes of their ability to perform certain actions, rather than you're capability of being able to do yours without any pressure.

It's something so that you cannot give exclusively to specific classes. It needs to either be a generic ability to every class or none at all.

What's to say a commando or vanguard couldn't use this? or a sage/scoundrel?

Bottom line is it's effect counters stuns, and EVERY class has stuns... so why cant every class have stun immunity?

Who knows... maybe they will

 

New Tier 2 utility - Thirst For Rage/Inspired Focus

Grants 12 rage/focus on Bloodthirst/Inspiration. Useful once every 5 minutes? Not always worth the utility point, which we already have a shortage of, but can have significant implications for opening rotations. Carnage/Combat will especially benefit from it, but Fury/Concentration already starts with a decent amount of resource and Annihilation/Watchman still needs to ramp up its Annihilate stacks early on. One question here is if this affects ALL Sentinels/Marauders in the group who have this utility, or just the one who casts Inspiration/Bloodthirst. If the latter, then this IS completely useless for you if you're not the guy casting it in a group with multiple Maras/Sents.

Personally I'm glad they had the imputes to finally give Inspiration some viability. Although I would prefer they just make it singular and lower cd, I guess it's nice it has an independant effect that sentinels can use.

 

New Tier 3 utility - Through Victory/Cut Loose

Movement impairing effect break on Mad Dash/Blade Blitz. Useless in PvE.

Could care less... I already have 3 other abilities that accomplish this.

 

To conclude, It's cute... ...but why would this even be a utility point?

 

Also, I don't appreciate bioware's attitude in raising the level prequisites for certain things, namely disciplines, skills and utility points... shows they probably have very little to offer on the creativity side when it comes to class development, and thus spacing out the disciplines so that you reduce the number of new ones added based on the discipline level pattern, down from 3 to 2.

It sucks, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect them to do it.

 

This is the start (in my opinion) of when I'm beginning to feel like Bioware are going to repeat 3.0 again.

Less priority in class development and growth, and about 1,000 expressed methods of circumvention to what seems like an easier system, that's just being shuffled around so your eyes are diverted away from what really matters... It's nice they at least told us they only give 2 shats about storyline... kinda makes me feel less flipped off.. ..just a little

 

cant wait to see what other classes get i suppose.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Bonzenaattori

[DNGDangerous]

I am just glad they released mechanics info. I am finally jumping on board the hype train!

 

Choo choo! From here until release- hype train got no breaks! (At least for me)

[Racter]

(PVP) Anni/Carnage will remain sub par, Fury will continue to barely make the cut. The fact that they still aren't willing to fix our utilities after a year is bad news. Anni passive is meh, Carnage's is an outright joke and Fury's is fairly good. Heroic leap on a 45s cd not breaking roots without a heroic utility point is kind of a joke IMO. Additionally, no one should take the new utilities, as we continue to not have enough points to even get what we should have now, especially from a PVP perspective. The CC immunity on Saber Ward is almost offensively bad, as is free rage from a 5m CD. The class will remain sub par without the needed utility adjustments IMO, regardless of damage output. I don't understand why the devs are outright ignoring the state of the game, besides them not really understanding how their own game is actually played? I feel like they're still relying far too heavily on metrics, which outright can't take skill into account, and I'm fairly certain they're making some/many of these changes around solo ranked, which is a total joke. Very disappointed overall in Mara/Sent changes, and I will probably continue letting my vr 100 Mara and Sent gather dust. They are just frustrating to play now, and show no signs of improving in 4.0.

 

However, since this is a W/K thread and not just Sent/Mara, I do have to say Guardian/Jugg will be very strong in 4.0. Possibly outright unkitable. Unlike S/M, they were given what they should have as passives, passively. Therefore, they can afford to move some points around and pick up the root break on CF/Enrage and the root break on heroic leap, in addition to Unstoppable+Warmonger, as well as Vig/Veng immunity+Focus/Rage intercede breaks. I foresee incredible mobility for skilled G/J. If their damage stays the same relative to other classes, both G/J DPS specs will be very strong IMO. From the looks of things G/J tanks will remain objectively the weakest for arena, which is disappointing. They aren't getting anything in terms of "passive" DR, and they are likely to still do the least amount of damage.

 

Finally, I too am disappointed they're just moving things up and not giving us more. I do not at all enjoy logging in and finding I lost things and have to level to regain what I already had, especially on very old characters. Very specifically, why on earth are they taking away a utility point and making us level to get it back? Why are they moving critical tree components up again? It makes zero sense to me, especially with the discipline system. I mean, if you don't want to give people another utility point, that's a mistake IMO but fine. Just don't give us a utility point? Zero reason to move what we have up again. I would rather just get the new ability at 61 and the trees get the new things at 62 (or w/e, the level isn't important) and keep everything else exactly the same as it is now.

 

You are fundamentally supposed to get stronger over time in an MMORPG. We continuously are made weaker, then get to be the same as we were when we hit cap again. At least when we had talent trees, we could chose to give up offspec points to allow our spec to play properly. Now, you just lose things for X levels. I don't enjoy this at all, and I know I'm not alone.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Racter

[Giliodor]

I really don't like the burn on Blade Dance/Master Strike/Ravage. For Combat, that is. In PvP, I rarely (never) use Master Strike, so this will be utterly useless to me. Would much rather see something like the Concentrated Slice proc for Focused Burst. That seems really nice.

Oh well, guess I'll just be playing Concentration more.

[Karkais]

The fact that there are little changes is not necessarily bad.

 

You're right, they could have been nerfs.

 

If I need to take something positive out of this, at least the dash's cooldown is relatively short. If devs had only hinted at such an ability, I would've expected the cooldown to be 1,5 minutes.

 

But since we're not getting any extra utility points with the level cap increase, it's NOT better than nothing. We lose something to gain it, and it's not worth losing that something.

 

This has been recurring theme with Bioware for the past year at least. Forgive me for feeling depressed at the whole thing.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Karkais

[Costello]

All of our roootbreaks are STILL in heroic. Defensive Forms (aka Stoic/Brazen) STILL is a utility. 6sec immunity on a 3min CD, wow. These changes are exactly as expected. If the rest of the class changes matches the *cough*ed changes we saw a while ago, nothing will change. In fact, PvP balance will get even worse if they go through with the rest.

 

Yeah.

 

Someone has suggested though I don't know if its trolling or not that Sorcs will get to move while in god bubble and also talk of a teleportation.

 

Now I don't know if this is true but I just came out of a PvP match which was decided by the healers keeping their people up and most the chat was kill their healer, focus on the star (we marked them). The match was ultimately won by the team with more FOTM classes. And I see nothing in these notes that will change that.

 

But meh PvP I rolled a sorc just cause I wanted to be able to heal and meaningfully contribute. What really gets me is that we are a pure dps class that offers no protection and fair to say no healing, we don't even have a cleanse unless you spend a heroic and yet our value in end game PvE is one of the worst classes.

 

Sure against a dummy I can do well I get my rotations off perfectly, I optimize procs etc etc I don't waste time on defensive abilities cause its not hitting me back and I sure as hell dont have to chase it across the screen or run away as it drops some damaging effect on its feet.

 

Now for any class with a selection of attacks with a 10m+ range its fine, for those ranged classes rotation is easy I sit myself down on my rdps and I can run through my rotation, It maybe broken slightly when Im force to move slightly but the moves are few and far between. On my Marauder its a full time job keep close let along getting a rotation off that often fails because mid way through ravage the boss moves out of range or drops something so I have to break it.

 

I don't get how the combat team don't get this. I know they blamed the ops designers and said its all their fault they designed stupid opts that had too many stupid anit-mdps mechanics. When all that needs to be done is that dps is significantly increased to take into account broken rotations and time off target.

[g_mK]

Whenever a major expansion has dropped lots of imbalance has been created due to big changes in specs. During the 2.0 era, sentinel was in pretty much in a good place, Focus/Rage where pretty much flavor of the year in PVP while watchman and combat where both good for pvp. Some other classes however where pretty much useless. Beginning with 2.5 until 2.10 the developers kept doing changes and by 2.10 we did have some semblance of balance in both PVP and PVE though not perfect. Come 3.0 all was changes and willpower classes where OP in PVP and aim classes where OP in PVE now we are in 3.3 and balance has improved but not to the 2.10 levels. With 4.0 coming a player may like new cool abilities but if the dev team does as little changes as possible with a focus more into balance then it would be better overall for the endgame both pvp and pve. There still remains to be seen what changes will be made to other classes.

 

Only change that I still would like to see is making contemplation a passive.

Edited September 5, 2015 by g_mK

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

But since we're not getting any extra utility points with the level cap increase, it's NOT better than nothing. We lose something to gain it, and it's not worth losing that something.

 

What would we lose in PvP? Oh, right a Ravage Root.

 

My utility build is this:

 

Skillful: Ravage Root, Brazen, Inextorable

Masterful: Relentless and Defensive Roll

Heroic: Undying and Unbound

 

I'd happily trade my Ravage root for 12s of CC immunity in Ranked!

[DynamiCtagez]

Stoic/Brazen should become a passive and Expunging Camo should be moved to Skillful. We need at least ONE fking rootbreak in a lower tier than Heroic. Edited September 5, 2015 by DynamiCtagez

[LunarAshes]

Whenever a major expansion has dropped lots of imbalance has been created due to big changes in specs. During the 2.0 era, sentinel was in pretty much in a good place, Focus/Rage where pretty much flavor of the year in PVP while watchman and combat where both good for pvp. Some other classes however where pretty much useless. Beginning with 2.5 until 2.10 the developers kept doing changes and by 2.10 we did have some semblance of balance in both PVP and PVE though not perfect. Come 3.0 all was changes and willpower classes where OP in PVP and aim classes where OP in PVE now we are in 3.3 and balance has improved but not to the 2.10 levels. With 4.0 coming a player may like new cool abilities but if the dev team does as little changes as possible with a focus more into balance then it would be better overall for the endgame both pvp and pve. There still remains to be seen what changes will be made to other classes.

 

Only change that I still would like to see is making contemplation a passive.

 

Yep. If Brooding/Contemplation and Stoic/Brazen were passive, I would be okay with everything. We would actually have the utility point budget to make meaningful choices rather than get things that should be baseline just to make our class functional.

 

In ops, people are already just getting to 30 stacks then respeccing out of Brooding/Contemplation. It makes no sense to keep that as a utility if people are skirting around it as is.

Edited September 5, 2015 by LunarAshes

[Racter]

Yep. If Brooding/Contemplation and Stoic/Brazen were passive, I would be okay with everything. We would actually have the utility point budget to make meaningful choices rather than get things that should be baseline just to make our class functional.

 

In ops, people are already just getting to 30 stacks then respeccing out of Brooding/Contemplation. It makes no sense to keep that as a utility if people are skirting around it as is.

 

The hilarious thing is they wont change it in a beneficial way if they touch it at all. I'd almost put money on them making resetting talent points drop Fury stacks over just making Brooding passive lol

 

Additionally, it's not 12s immunity. It's 6s. On a 3m CD. Not at all worth it.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Racter

[James_Mcturney]

Pick at least two of the following, bioware: 2 stacks of merciless slash should instantly reset force melt duration, or/and force sweep should reset the duration of cauterize, or even better: remove cauterize and apply its dot effect to force sweep; don't forget to increase its range by 2~3 meters (for anihilation only; it's the worst dot spread in the game). Maybe rework that passive that grants critical chance bonus for each juyo stack, make it grant a critical damage bonus, since it doesn't stack with zen, pretty stupid.

That would fix the specs rotation, although it still is too squishy for pvp, so more changes in the defense area please, see as follow.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Sentinel/marauder really requires an extra passive skill: remove guarded by the force or the force camouflage (tier 2) utility and make it a passive (i.e. the skill gets it automatically without needing to spend an utility point)... substitute it with another utility no one will ever use... there are so many of those that we don't even care. The root breaking hability of mad dash should be imbued in the skill, not a freaking utility that we will never use, heroic tier? HAHA.

 

Another thing, remove cripling slash and implement it's effect (healing penalty) on dual saber throw. Sentinel already is one of the classes with the highest number of hotkeys (skills) that need to be used in pvp, like 28, and even so it's underperforming so much when compared to classes that use only +- 20 hotkeys.

Edited September 5, 2015 by James_Mcturney

[Kaedusz]

Mad Dash is needed, especially as a defensive CD because of the immunity. Also it sounds awesome, i hope the animation is good.

 

However why do Juggernauts/Guardians get it??? Give them more seconds to Saber Reflect or something that fits the class more. Mad Dash should be pure Marauder ability because : 1. It fits Marauders more, vibe wise, and we are in a need of such an ability. 2.Juggs don't need it. It doesn't fit their vibe.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Kaedusz

[Giliodor]

Why can't we get, instead of a DoT on MS/Ravage, stun immunity during the channel, or a reduced channel time, passively? Those would both be substantial improvements for PvP, whereas this DoT is probably just laughably bad.