Marauder/Sentinel Defensive Cooldowns: A Redux?

[SenariXarn]

Introduction

 

Hello everyone!

 

I'm just an armchair/amateur game designer, but after attempting a few battles on my Marauder between Carnage and Annihilation specs, I realized that the class has quite a bit of ability bloat going around. So I thought I'd share a few ideas here that people might want to look over, analyze for themselves, and come up with other solutions to the problem of ability bloat.

 

To preface my suggestions: I did not do extensive testing of this nor may I take into account all of the numerous boosts to certain skills that Masteries and Passives apply; but I imagine they could be all applied to the new abiltiies, within reason. I do this in an effort to have some fun with class design, not as a serious, scientifically-backed study on Marauders/Sentinels and how they'd be better off with fewer abilities; so please offer constructive criticism or use this thread as a place to lay some idea-nest-eggs yourself!

 

For reference's sake, I think it's a good idea to keep the class fantasies available up here near the top of the post, so here are the respective conceptualizations for each spec of Marauder/Sentinel and their primary damage-skill focuses (that I can discern):

 

 

• 
  Annihilation/Watchman:
  Mastering the aggressive Juyo form, the Annihilation Marauder destroys enemies from within. / Provides greater skill in single-blade offense and the ability to take enemies down quickly.
  Focus: DoT/Sustained
  

 

• 
  Carnage/Combat:
  Focuses on acrobatic Lightsaber techniques that strike quickly and lethally. / Allows the Sentinel to master the Ataru Lightsaber form to rapidly dispatch enemies.
  Focus: Rotational high damage-window/Burst
  

 

• 
  Fury/Concentration:
  Allows the Warrior greater control of the Force and further mastery of the Shii-Cho form. / Specializes in advanced Force techniques and the Shii-Cho lightsaber form.
  Focus: AoE/Control/Mobility/Fluidity
  

 

Alrighty, onto the skills I think could use the most reworking:

 

Defensive Cooldowns: Third Times The Charm

Okay, so we have Cloak of Pain, Saber Ward, and Undying Rage. Likewise, we have three specializations: Annihilation/Watchman, Carnage/Combat, and Fury/Concentration. Why not homogenize these a bit for the sake of consolidating redundant abilities? Wait! Hold onto that "rawr homogenization rawr" response for a second and hear me out!

 

Which spec closely aligns to Saber Ward here? What about Cloak of Pain/Rebuke? Undying Rage/Guarded by the Force? If we merge these three cooldowns into one baseline, then split and augment them amongst the three available specs, we can effectively save ourselves the complexity of figuring out which combination to use against an enemy in response to their attacks and focus more on our role: Doing the 1337 dips.

 

So, my proposal: Saber Ward gains a bit of staying power from Cloak of Pain/Rebuke and damage reduction from Undying Rage/Guarded by the Force in its baseline form that we obtain at level 4:

 

• Saber Ward - Cooldown 3min
  Raises a lightsaber ward, increasing melee and ranged defenses by 35% and absorbing 35% of the damage taken from Force and tech attacks. Lasts 8 seconds. Saber Ward refreshes to its full duration when attacked, but this effect cannot last more than 30 seconds in total.

 

So, a nerf of duration to 8 sec from 12 and a nerf in defense from 50% to 35%, but a damage reduction increase to 35% and a duration extension a la Cloak of Pain/Rebuke to a total of 30 while retaining its 3 min CD.

 

Defensive Cooldown Redux - Annihilation/Watchman

 

What do we do with the other abilities? Let's passive-ize them, starting with Annihilation/Watchman:

 

• Cloak of Pain/Rebuke - Passive - Level 16 - Annihilation/Watchman Discipline Path
  Saber Ward now reduces damage taken from Force and tech attacks by 15% and deals energy damage to attackers. Damage dealt by Saber Ward cannot occur more than once every second.

 

• Empowered Rend/Empowered Melt - Passive - 20 - Annihilation/Watchman Discipline Path
  Reduces the cooldown of Force Rend/Force Melt by 3 seconds and causes it to build 1 additional rage/focus.

 

• Blood Guard/Blazing Ward - Passive - Level 56 - Annihilation/Watchman Discipline Path
  Dealing bleed/burn damage to a target increases your damage reduction by 5% for 3 seconds. The cooldown of your Saber Ward is reduced by 60 seconds.

 

This makes Annihilation/Watchman Marauders/Sentinels have a 2-minute defensive cooldown that can extend its duration to 30 seconds, damages attackers, and provides a total of 35% to defenses (down from 50%) and 50% damage reduction from Force and tech abilities. The major part of this passive is added at level 16, with its cooldown reduction slotting in at level 56, alongside a similarly themed talent.

 

Defensive Cooldown Redux - Carnage/Combat

 

As far as I've seen, the developers have essentially assigned Carnage/Combat as the go-to saber-master specialization. So, in light of that, let's double-down on saber mastery and fast-paced cooldown interaction!

 

• Dual Wield Saber Mastery - Passive - Level 16 - Carnage/Combat Discipline Path
  Increases the damage dealt with offhand lightsaber attacks by 25% and reduces the cooldown of Saber Ward by 2 minutes.

 

• Efficient Strikes - Passive - Level 56 - Carnage/Combat Discipline Path
  While Ataru Form is active, Berserk/Zen reduces the rage/focus consumed by Massacre/Blade Rush and Sweeping Slash/Cyclone Slash by 1. Also, the active cooldown of Saber Ward is reduced by 1 second each time Ataru Form deals damage.

 

This essentially makes Saber Ward into a 1-minute cooldown with a maximum duration of 30 seconds, a 35% defense boost, 35% Force/tech damage absorption, and a very low downtime. Again, if this cooldown reduction were paired with the Heroic Mastery Cloak of Annihilation/Jedi Promulgator, there would likely be 100% uptime; so perhaps something other than cooldown reduction can fit into the level 56 talent for Carnage/Combat.

 

Defensive Cooldown Redux - Fury/Concentration

 

Okay, so mobility and damage reduction... Perhaps doubling down on the defense part, instead of the damage reduction, can make this cooldown shine; essentially turning the spec into more of a glass cannon than the other two.

 

• Shii-Cho Mastery - Passive - Level 16 - Fury/Concentration Discipline Path
  Shii-Cho Form increases armor penetration by 15% and your melee and ranged defenses while under Saber Ward by 15%.

 

• Furious Defense/Concentrated Defense - Passive - 60 - Fury/Concentration Discipline Path
  While Shii-Cho Form is active, Furious Strike/Concentrated Slice grants Furious Defense/Concentrated Defense, increasing your defense chance by 10% for 6 seconds. Also, your melee and ranged defenses while under Saber Ward are increased by an additional 50%.

 

So, with these changes, we can see Saber Ward remain a 3 minute cooldown, provide 100% boost to defense and a 35% damage reduction for Force and tech abilities if they do manage to somehow hit.

 

Conclusion

I've a few more ideas on other topics, but for now this will do =)

 

I hope you enjoyed reading my suggestions and would love to go back and forth with some theorycrafting or other such thing here. Thanks for your time and consideration!

Edited November 22, 2015 by SenariXarn
Quick language fix.

[Nic__]

While I applaud your attempt to help make suggestions to help remedy an issue you see with a class you enjoy I have to say I think you are targeting the wrong area. You will receive little if no support for removing multiple cds from a class by anyone who actually plays the class. A few reasons being from a pvp stand point that most classes have multiple cds, if sent have only one on 1-3 min CD what are they supposed to do between cds? Hope no one decides the guy with 2 sabers is a threat/easy target? Not likely. From a pve stand point is helping yours out, same logic I guess mechanics and damage spikes usually happen more than once every 3 minutes, no raid group will care what numbers you pull if you spend most of the fight keeping the rocks company.

 

A area of focus I feel you would receive much more support in is attack abilities, carnage doesn't suffer at all from it but it can be argued that annihilation and fury both do. Off hand I think annihilation and fury use about 12+ abilities for their rotation. While I enjoy playing those spec as they are I feel that is a better target for you to address the issue you are finding.

[SenariXarn]

Most definitely!

 

The defensive cooldowns were just something I could easily see and a subject I could address right away, without theorycrafting the mess out of rotations between all three specs (only two of which I've played, one well). Also, these kinds of changes would have to be made across the board to all classes, to ensure that PvP remained as balanced as possible.

 

I also agree in thinking that Fury/Concentration and Annihilation/Watchman both use way too many abilities. Comparing damage rotations from multiple MMOs, SWTOR's Marauders/Sentinels have it bad; and for not a substantial theoretical DPS increase either.

 

I'll do some work on those specs and see if I can't get a hang of how they're supposed to work currently and where things could be changed to make them more entertaining. I'll make a post similar to this one in the future when I've had the time to do just that =)

[Troelsen]

It's not that Fury has too many abilities, it's just the way they're used that's kind of complicated. I think Raging Burst has too many sources of buffs for full damage. Charge/Oblit makes it an auto crit, Crush and Berserk increase damage and make it free, and Furious Strike increases surge.

 

What looks like a flexible spec actually requires a pretty rigid setup. In PvP, if I'm on target and Raging Burst is coming off cooldown, I don't want to waste the opportunity to use Oblit when I might need it in the next 10 seconds, and I don't want to run out just to Charge the gap I created for the enemy, again wasting the opportunity to counter a gap opener. I think some of those buffs to Raging Burst can be consolidated, or maybe they could flip it around and make Raging Burst buff something else.