Lethality needs some QoL improvments

[Feddot]

I think, everyone agrees, that lethality needs some small buffs to be better in pvp and pve.

I suggest some of this:

- Lethal strike applies our dots on the target, when used from stealth

- Lethal strike refreshes our dots

- Increase surge for Corrosive assault, Shiv, Lethal strike by 10% (?)

- Kolto infusion without GCG after roll

- Ability to use medical probes on yourself in stealth

- Increase radius of Corrosive grenade

- Dot Spread with Fragmentation grenade

Some ideas were already discussed by the community and pity, that BW does not want to hear us. But still, i think, we must remind them about this spec. I still hope to see some improvements in the future.

What do you think, guys? Will this buffs help lethality to be viable or make it OP? Do you have any other ideas?

[Dropfall]

Something needs to be done with Lethality DPS; I was getting utterly left behind in a HM SnV by a lesser geared Veng Jugg. Disheartening to say the least.

 

I think, everyone agrees, that lethality needs some small buffs to be better in pvp and pve.

I suggest some of this:

- Lethal strike applies our dots on the target, when used from stealth

Might have to lose the TA from stealth to get this one, but would be QoL indeed

 

- Lethal strike refreshes our dots

I like that one

 

- Increase surge for Corrosive assault, Shiv, Lethal strike by 10% (?)

The problem with CA and LS isn't that they don't crit enough, or well, it's that in CA's case specifically, there's a separate roll for each of the three parts much like a channeled ability. So the likelihood of having all three parts crit at once is astronomical, meaning you're never ever gonna get those massive 15-20K crits. Which sucks the big one.

 

Shiv, that needs a massive damage increase. Even it's crits don't match the normal damage from a veiled strike in concealment.

 

- Kolto infusion without GCG after roll

Maybe

 

- Ability to use medical probes on yourself in stealth

That would be awesome. May be longer length too.

 

- Increase radius of Corrosive grenade

Disagree. See next for why.

 

- Dot Spread with Fragmentation grenade

Corrosive Grenade spreads the Dart, exactly like Virulence please. Frag Grenade ain't that useful, and its Carbine Burst that needs a bigger fix that FG.

 

Some ideas were already discussed by the community and pity, that BW does not want to hear us. But still, i think, we must remind them about this spec. I still hope to see some improvements in the future.

What do you think, guys? Will this buffs help lethality to be viable or make it OP? Do you have any other ideas?

 

To say changes could make us OP. Quite literally, so what? Never has a spec been so left behind as this spec has been. Few people play Operative DPS, and even fewer play Lethality.

[MrGoldsilver]

I think, everyone agrees, that lethality needs some small buffs to be better in pvp and pve.

I suggest some of this:

- Lethal strike applies our dots on the target, when used from stealth

- Lethal strike refreshes our dots

- Increase surge for Corrosive assault, Shiv, Lethal strike by 10% (?)

- Kolto infusion without GCG after roll

- Ability to use medical probes on yourself in stealth

- Increase radius of Corrosive grenade

- Dot Spread with Fragmentation grenade

Some ideas were already discussed by the community and pity, that BW does not want to hear us. But still, i think, we must remind them about this spec. I still hope to see some improvements in the future.

What do you think, guys? Will this buffs help lethality to be viable or make it OP? Do you have any other ideas?

 

1) isn't really needed but would be interesting to see.

 

2) That might be a little OP, especially rotation wise, not sure.

 

3) Sure

 

4) That would be nice for pvp

 

5) Not really needed, especially of 4 existed.

 

6) Not really needed

 

7) Anything to get rid of the carbine burst DOT spread!

 

For the most part, Lethality is fine now in pvp at least, but I would love to see some of these changes.

[Arkhonos]

I am speaking from an endgame PvE perspective only.

 

The first issue with Lethality is true (and even worse actually) for Concealment as well: Operative in general has the worst AoE in the game as far as DPS specs go. I will concede that in certain situations Lethality can produce some decent AoE damage. When there are several adds that have high health that are closely grouped together, Lethality can DoT spread and essentially spam Carbine Burst indefinitely due to the high amount of energy return from critical DoT hits. The problem is that in operations these situations are rare. It is more common to require burst for a wave of adds during a fight, making the DoT spread from Carbine Burst actually less DPS than continuing to single target. On top of it all, Carbine Burst is tricky and not very intuitive to use, especially in tense moments. I don't claim my solution the best, but it would seem to me that AoE for both Operative disciplines could be significantly improved to the point where it is somewhat competitive with other disciplines if the following happened:

 

-Carbine Burst receives an enlarged cone, preferably both its width and length

 

-"Burst" AoE is improved, either by increasing the damage and radius of Fragmentation Grenade, or preferably reintroducing Orbital Strike for all Imperial Agents. Concealment could have its crit chance and surge bonus taken from Carbine Burst and put into Orbital Strike. Perhaps the delay between its cast and when it hits could also be altered for Operatives.

 

 

I am also of the opinion that both Operative disciplines should be buffed in terms of their single target DPS. I am biased as an Operative main, but the way I see DPS balance melee DoT specs such as Pyrotech, Hatred, Lethality, Annihilation, and Vengeance should all be towards the top end due to their set up times and difficulty in maintaining uptime compared to ranged classes on fights which require significant movement. I don't think this requires changing the playstyle of Lethality at all, as I believe the spec already has interesting decisions available to it in operations which make it fun and rewarding to play. I should also mention that because Lethality is somewhat of a mid-range class with its DoTs being usable at 30m and Toxic Blast and Corrosive Assault at 10m, I want it at the lower end of the other 4 melee DoT disciplines I mentioned. I'd actually be OK with some burst melee disciplines parsing close to Lethality, such as Concealment due to its positional requirement and poor range.

 

What I propose is a buff to Lethal Strike by increasing the worth of the Cut Down buff. As it stands, Cut Down is even worse in 4.0 than in 3.x due to the 10% nerf to its damage bonus. I suggest a combination of increasing its damage bonus to DoTs as well as the duration of the buff. I believe a 9 second Cut Down buff as well as 30-35% DoT damage bonus would be enough to increase Lethality's single target DPS to competitive levels with other melee DoT specs. A secondary benefit of a change along these lines is that it changes Lethality's execute phase priority, in my opinion making the spec even more fun and interesting to play (Please let me know if I am wrong, but I think Shiv's priority in the execute is lowered with my proposed buffs to Lethal Strike). A final benefit is that it buffs Operative AoE as well, because Lethal Strike becomes more powerful the more DoTs that there are active in a fight.

 

I am interested in a theorycrafter's opinion on changing Cut Down, as it's possible I've made a grave mistake in my estimations. I am certainly open to other ways of changing Lethality.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Arkhonos

[-Healius-]

- Lethal strike applies our dots on the target, when used from stealth << Nice

- Lethal strike refreshes our dots << Nice but might be OP

- Increase surge for Corrosive assault, Shiv, Lethal strike by 10% (?) << Yeh we need a little dps buff

- Kolto infusion without GCG after roll << Can live without

- Ability to use medical probes on yourself in stealth << Will be OP in pvp

- Increase radius of Corrosive grenade << Dont see why not

- Dot Spread with Fragmentation grenade << YES YES YES

[Dropfall]

I am speaking from an endgame PvE perspective only.

 

The first issue with Lethality is true (and even worse actually) for Concealment as well: Operative in general has the worst AoE in the game as far as DPS specs go. I will concede that in certain situations Lethality can produce some decent AoE damage. When there are several adds that have high health that are closely grouped together, Lethality can DoT spread and essentially spam Carbine Burst indefinitely due to the high amount of energy return from critical DoT hits. The problem is that in operations these situations are rare. It is more common to require burst for a wave of adds during a fight, making the DoT spread from Carbine Burst actually less DPS than continuing to single target. On top of it all, Carbine Burst is tricky and not very intuitive to use, especially in tense moments. I don't claim my solution the best, but it would seem to me that AoE for both Operative disciplines could be significantly improved to the point where it is somewhat competitive with other disciplines if the following happened:

 

-Carbine Burst receives an enlarged cone, preferably both its width and length

 

-"Burst" AoE is improved, either by increasing the damage and radius of Fragmentation Grenade, or preferably reintroducing Orbital Strike for all Imperial Agents. Concealment could have its crit chance and surge bonus taken from Carbine Burst and put into Orbital Strike. Perhaps the delay between its cast and when it hits could also be altered for Operatives.

 

I'd like to see Orbital Strike return. But that has a CD. Same issue with Frag Grenade.

 

As of late I've actually been using Carbine Burst spam for AoE dmg. The real trick to using it is to move to the sides of a group as they're awkwardly clumped around the tank, and then hit the ability.

However I really wish I didn't have to do this. What all Operative specs should get is a spammable, same damage across all targets hit, Frag Grenade, but would probably need a reduction and cost, and would definitely need a reduction in cost.

 

I am also of the opinion that both Operative disciplines should be buffed in terms of their single target DPS. I am biased as an Operative main, but the way I see DPS balance melee DoT specs such as Pyrotech, Hatred, Lethality, Annihilation, and Vengeance should all be towards the top end due to their set up times and difficulty in maintaining uptime compared to ranged classes on fights which require significant movement. I don't think this requires changing the playstyle of Lethality at all, as I believe the spec already has interesting decisions available to it in operations which make it fun and rewarding to play. I should also mention that because Lethality is somewhat of a mid-range class with its DoTs being usable at 30m and Toxic Blast and Corrosive Assault at 10m, I want it at the lower end of the other 4 melee DoT disciplines I mentioned. I'd actually be OK with some burst melee disciplines parsing close to Lethality, such as Concealment due to its positional requirement and poor range.

 

A lot of those specs you listed, a substantial amount of the overall damage of the spec is made up from other attacks, not the DoTs. Lethality falls into this category. Almost all of them have a couple of hard hitting abilities.

Currently and on average my Corrosive Assault does over 40% of all dmg, CDart 11-12%, CGrenade 10-11%, Toxic Blast 10%, etc, etc.

The problem is, unlike those specs, we have only one hard hitting ability which requires both DoTs to do so.

Lethality Ops need another hard hitting ability; the obvious being lethal strike which needs about a 10% damage increase.

We need an increase to the damage from our DoTs. When your Corrosive Dart ticks for 24 secs and does the same collective amount of damage that a 15s DoT does, something is very wrong.

Shiv needs to hit harder. And Weakening Blast could stand to have 50% damage increase across all parts.

 

What I propose is a buff to Lethal Strike by increasing the worth of the Cut Down buff. As it stands, Cut Down is even worse in 4.0 than in 3.x due to the 10% nerf to its damage bonus. I suggest a combination of increasing its damage bonus to DoTs as well as the duration of the buff. I believe a 9 second Cut Down buff as well as 30-35% DoT damage bonus would be enough to increase Lethality's single target DPS to competitive levels with other melee DoT specs. A secondary benefit of a change along these lines is that it changes Lethality's execute phase priority, in my opinion making the spec even more fun and interesting to play (Please let me know if I am wrong, but I think Shiv's priority in the execute is lowered with my proposed buffs to Lethal Strike). A final benefit is that it buffs Operative AoE as well, because Lethal Strike becomes more powerful the more DoTs that there are active in a fight.

 

I am interested in a theorycrafter's opinion on changing Cut Down, as it's possible I've made a grave mistake in my estimations. I am certainly open to other ways of changing Lethality.

 

What was the Cut Down percentage previously? Given how the maximum dps output is tied to so many abilities, cut down shouldn't exist. Besides 9s is just 1 more tick than live. If you made Cut Down 12s, it be better just to tack the damage straight on to the ability rather than making have you use Lethal Strike every 12s.

 

To summarise what Lethality needs

 

• Return of Orbital Strike
  
• Frag Grenade becomes spammable with same damage across all targets. Reduced cost, and range.
  
• Removal of carbine burst
  
• 10% damage buff to Lethal Strike
  
• 50% damage buff to Weakening Blast
  
• 10-15% damage buff to Shiv
  
• 10-15% damage buff to Corrosive Grenade and Corrosive Dart
  

 

Lethality has been ****te for too long.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Dropfall

[Arkhonos]

A lot of those specs you listed, a substantial amount of the overall damage of the spec is made up from other attacks, not the DoTs. Lethality falls into this category. Almost all of them have a couple of hard hitting abilities.

Currently and on average my Corrosive Assault does over 40% of all dmg, CDart 11-12%, CGrenade 10-11%, Toxic Blast 10%, etc, etc.

The problem is, unlike those specs, we have only one hard hitting ability which requires both DoTs to do so.

Lethality Ops need another hard hitting ability; the obvious being lethal strike which needs about a 10% damage increase.

We need an increase to the damage from our DoTs. When your Corrosive Dart ticks for 24 secs and does the same collective amount of damage that a 15s DoT does, something is very wrong.

Shiv needs to hit harder. And Weakening Blast could stand to have 50% damage increase across all parts

 

Why does Lethality need all these things? Your first statement about having only one hard hitting ability is irrelevant for single-target DPS balance. Lethality could be the highest parsing discipline with its current playstyle if ability coefficients were altered. Now, the consequence of having one high damaging ability which requires both DoTs and preferably Toxic Blast to use to its full potential is that we have a long setup time that hampers us in certain boss fights, but I was speaking to our numbers on a dummy in a vacuum.

 

There is no problem with our DoTs doing less damage than other DoTs because they also contribute damage through Corrosive Assault outside of their individual ticks. This is the playstyle of Lethality, and it is welcomed that we are different from Annihilation and we are different from Hatred. You state that X ability needs to hit harder, but you provide no reasoning for why. Are the numbers you chose based on any math? My buff to Cut Down was the point where I thought it would still keep Lethal Strike at its low-priority spot before the execute, but bring it up during the execute (though if I am wrong on the numbers the exact percentage can certainly change). You could argue that buffing the damage from Shiv and Lethal Strike will help burst DPS in boss fights, but my post was strictly concerned with sustained DPS as honestly Lethality's burst capabilities are not important. If you need burst, you should play Concealment. This discipline is about high single-target damage and low burst.

 

What was the Cut Down percentage previously? Given how the maximum dps output is tied to so many abilities, cut down shouldn't exist. Besides 9s is just 1 more tick than live. If you made Cut Down 12s, it be better just to tack the damage straight on to the ability rather than making have you use Lethal Strike every 12s.

 

Lethality has been ****te for too long.

 

Cut Down was previously a 20% damage bonus to DoTs. Now it is 10%.

 

I disagree with your opinion of Cut Down. Altering Cut Down to make it stronger is the simplest way to provide more rewarding gameplay in the current implementation of Lethality while increasing our damage capabilities to the levels of other top-performing single-target disciplines. As I mentioned previously, buffing Cut Down changes the execute priority, so skilled Operatives will have to learn to adjust sub-30% and play differently than on high health enemies. To me this is significantly more interesting and fun than having an execute buff but not promoting different play in the execute. Annihilation has Vicious Throw, which is its best filler ability in the execute. It is fun to use because you need to know when you can use it without spending too much rage so that you end up delaying your other key abilities. Lethal Strike could have this type of interaction, instead of its current implementation where you use it when you have nothing more important to use.

 

Your changes of flat % damage increases on abilities improves the burst DPS of Lethality, whereas my goal is to keep the philosophy of a low-burst, high setup time yet extremely high DPS discipline. My buff only really benefits players that understand the discipline well, but ability damage increases require no extra thought from the player. I'm definitely open to having a few abilities receive damage increases but I'd need to see some math or other strong reasoning why. Otherwise we're simply begging to do more damage for the sake of it just as everyone who doesn't play the #1 DPS discipline does.

 

For the record, I disagree with the statement that Lethality is ****. From a single-target DPS perspective we are pretty middle of the road. Our low burst is partially offset by our strong range compared to other melee specs. We do not suffer from interrupting casts or channels during movement heavy fights like true ranged specs. Holotraverse and Exfiltrate are among the best movement abilities in the game. Cloaking Screen is an extremely valuable tool for a raid group. Slightly higher DPS potential and reworked AoE would put us in an excellent spot.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Arkhonos

[Dropfall]

Why does Lethality need all these things? Your first statement about having only one hard hitting ability is irrelevant for single-target DPS balance. Lethality could be the highest parsing discipline with its current playstyle if ability coefficients were altered. Now, the consequence of having one high damaging ability which requires both DoTs and preferably Toxic Blast to use to its full potential is that we have a long setup time that hampers us in certain boss fights, but I was speaking to our numbers on a dummy in a vacuum.

Parsing is utterly pointless if the numbers you pull in your parse don't even come close to reality on a PvE Boss or in PvP. I don't just look at numbers in a vacuum.

Lethality needs more than just one hard hitting ability. Always has. From my perspective it seems you've made Lethality out to be a sustained DPS spec. Stop hitting Corrosive Assault and see how sustained your dps will be.

 

There is no problem with our DoTs doing less damage than other DoTs because they also contribute damage through Corrosive Assault outside of their individual ticks. This is the playstyle of Lethality, and it is welcomed that we are different from Annihilation and we are different from Hatred. You state that X ability needs to hit harder, but you provide no reasoning for why. Are the numbers you chose based on any math? My buff to Cut Down was the point where I thought it would still keep Lethal Strike at its low-priority spot before the execute, but bring it up during the execute (though if I am wrong on the numbers the exact percentage can certainly change). You could argue that buffing the damage from Shiv and Lethal Strike will help burst DPS in boss fights, but my post was strictly concerned with sustained DPS as honestly Lethality's burst capabilities are not important. If you need burst, you should play Concealment. This discipline is about high single-target damage and low burst.

 

If you remove the buff having the two DoTs present provides you've got yourself a pretty useless spammable ability in Corrosive Assault. To say that the DoT damage is fine 'because' it buffs Corrosive Assault is nonsense. Just because one helps bring Corrosive Assaults damage up to moderately OK levels does not mean the actual DoT damage should be irrelevant, which it is currently. Just did a 1 Mil parse in hodgepodge gear. The two DoTs together 196K... Less than 20% of overall damage from the DoTs, in what most people think is a DoT spec.... Wooo!

 

The whole 'why' thing is easy to answer - Lethality damage has always been subpar. Literally every ability bar Corrosive Assault could stand an increase in damage. It won't increase burst, because those abilities never hit hard enough to begin with, but it will increase total damage output.

 

Lethality damage is only sustained by hitting Corrosive Assault.

 

Cut Down was previously a 20% damage bonus to DoTs. Now it is 10%.

 

I disagree with your opinion of Cut Down. Altering Cut Down to make it stronger is the simplest way to provide more rewarding gameplay in the current implementation of Lethality while increasing our damage capabilities to the levels of other top-performing single-target disciplines. As I mentioned previously, buffing Cut Down changes the execute priority, so skilled Operatives will have to learn to adjust sub-30% and play differently than on high health enemies. To me this is significantly more interesting and fun than having an execute buff but not promoting different play in the execute. Annihilation has Vicious Throw, which is its best filler ability in the execute. It is fun to use because you need to know when you can use it without spending too much rage so that you end up delaying your other key abilities. Lethal Strike could have this type of interaction, instead of its current implementation where you use it when you have nothing more important to use.

 

Cut Down is still pointless, even if you buff it. 4+ ticks (to a maximum of 8 ticks if you miraculously got back to back double dmg procs on both DoTs) of pathetic damage buffed by 35% + 15% during execute is still bugger all damage. If the average normal hit of my Corrosive Dart is currently 1137 per tick, during an execute with those numbers it becomes 1705.5 damage; twice in 6s.

Lets as you suggest make it 9s long, so 3 ticks. 5116.5 damage... That's utterly pathetic.

Corrosive Grenade hits even less. 972 avg per tick, 3 ticks, at 150%, 4374 damage, in 9s.

 

I use Lethal Strike when I have nothing more important to use. It simply doesn't not bring enough to warrant it's use religiously every 12s. Having more Corrosive Assaults + the two ticks of Weakening Blast is more effective than the 10% buff to the two DoTs.

In the space of 6s, I could have hit Corrosive Assault for a maximum four times. Weakening Blast for me was ticking for 444 damage, so 5328 damage, whilst the two DoTs in those 6s under Cut Down can only manage 4639.8.

Now if they made Lethal Strike work like Corrosive Assault for double internal damage for having two DoTs up; call me interested.

 

Your changes of flat % damage increases on abilities improves the burst DPS of Lethality, whereas my goal is to keep the philosophy of a low-burst, high setup time yet extremely high DPS discipline. My buff only really benefits players that understand the discipline well, but ability damage increases require no extra thought from the player. I'm definitely open to having a few abilities receive damage increases but I'd need to see some math or other strong reasoning why. Otherwise we're simply begging to do more damage for the sake of it just as everyone who doesn't play the #1 DPS discipline does.

 

For the record, I disagree with the statement that Lethality is ****. From a single-target DPS perspective we are pretty middle of the road. Our low burst is partially offset by our strong range compared to other melee specs. We do not suffer from interrupting casts or channels during movement heavy fights like true ranged specs. Holotraverse and Exfiltrate are among the best movement abilities in the game. Cloaking Screen is an extremely valuable tool for a raid group. Slightly higher DPS potential and reworked AoE would put us in an excellent spot.

Lethality is not extremely high damage. Never really has been. The only reason to bring one into a Op is all its added healing/cleanse/stealthing bonuses. And even then, damage wise Concealment outstripped us.

 

Lethality does not have strong ranged damage for a melee; AP Powertech wants to say hi.

 

Your assumption that I or anyone else doesn't know Lethality well or how to play an Operative is condescending. Additionally why should those who don't know it well be shafted with well below par damage because they don't know all the intricacies of the spec? It should be Lethality does good DPS with an average player, and outstanding DPS with an excellent player.

Currently you have to be an excellent player to just have average damage, and it sucks, and I'm sick of it.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Dropfall

[cs_zoltan]

- Lethal strike refreshes our dots

 

Eh, no! DoT refresh on a DoT spec is asinine.

[Arkhonos]

Cut Down is still pointless, even if you buff it. 4+ ticks (to a maximum of 8 ticks if you miraculously got back to back double dmg procs on both DoTs) of pathetic damage buffed by 35% + 15% during execute is still bugger all damage. If the average normal hit of my Corrosive Dart is currently 1137 per tick, during an execute with those numbers it becomes 1705.5 damage; twice in 6s.

Lets as you suggest make it 9s long, so 3 ticks. 5116.5 damage... That's utterly pathetic.

Corrosive Grenade hits even less. 972 avg per tick, 3 ticks, at 150%, 4374 damage, in 9s.

 

A 30-35% Cut Down over 9 seconds results in both your DoTs doing more damage over the course of a parse than a passive 10% damage increase. Your DoTs will contribute a higher percentage of your overall damage with this change. Isn't that what you were asking for? 20-25% extra damage (compared to what we have now) to ~70% of our DoTs in the execute may sound like garbage damage to you, but that amount literally turns Lethality from mid-tier damage into one of the top sustained DPS disciplines in the game. We already hit like a truck in the execute and this change helps us hit even harder.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Arkhonos

[Dropfall]

A 30-35% Cut Down over 9 seconds results in both your DoTs doing more damage over the course of a parse than a passive 10% damage increase. Your DoTs will contribute a higher percentage of your overall damage with this change. Isn't that what you were asking for? 20-25% extra damage (compared to what we have now) to ~70% of our DoTs in the execute may sound like garbage damage to you, but that amount literally turns Lethality from mid-tier damage into one of the top sustained DPS disciplines in the game. We already hit like a truck in the execute and this change helps us hit even harder.

 

So I did some math. I take it back, you're not wrong in that 35% Cut Down would increase the damage output. I just don't like the idea of it.

 

So over 240s, you'd have 60 hits with +35% if you were using Lethal Strike religiously, and 20 hits without.

If Corrosive Grenade was hitting for 972, and Dart for 1137, the combined damage in this 240s window is 234,309.9 damage. This is a 27.99% difference from if there was no buff at all, or a 18.9% difference if a flat 10% buff was attached.

 

On a 1 million health parse, the normal unbuffed damage mathematically and without double procs, would equate to 16.87% of the damage, 10% buffed would be 18.56% (90 DPS increase), 35% for 9s every 12s is 23.43% of the damage (347 DPS increase).

 

Like I said, I personally don't like the idea, and would prefer everything bar Corrosive Assault gets a buff.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Dropfall