Nerfed Companion Heals SUCK

[DakhathKilrathi]

What did you do in the 4 years before Kofte?

 

Its not like a new game where comps are implemented op then nerfed. They're at a similar lvl to pre 4.0 which imo is what they should have been initially

 

No they aren't. Companions in the current state can barely outheal the self heals a Madness/Balance Sorc/Sage gets from their rotation alone. Low rank companions can't outheal it. Madness/Balance is damage, in case you didn't know that. Do you really think that dedicated healer companions shouldn't be outhealing a damage spec?

 

No, they weren't god mode before 4.0, but they were better than they are right now. I could deal with pre-4.0 companions, but that isn't what we got.

Edited November 22, 2015 by DakhathKilrathi

[TaliRa]

It's not just the heals. With the comp set at healer he/she gets little or no damage done , in a boss fight you're dead!

[Stradlin]

It is a rare thing to see as selfish and entitled community as one SW:TOR is stuck with. Depths of entitlement that people reach appear limitless, when it comes to content and what people feel they should be able to easily solo.

 

Everybody throwing a hissyfit about companion nerfs realizes well that concept of having semi-immortality and demigod companions causes active harm to the game as a whole; certainly in the long run. They realize their demands efficiently trivialize and remove group content from the game. It's just that this is something that has no relevancy to them at all, not when other scale has " me me me I want things fast and easy! I'm a busy father of two with a career and six max lvl characters. Somehow, this all means everything must be so easy it feels easy even for me!"

 

SW:TOR with nerfed companions is so easy that it is extremely difficult to actually learn how to play the game. Aftermath of it all might teach one something about human nature tho.

[DakhathKilrathi]

Everybody throwing a hissyfit about companion nerfs realizes well that concept of having semi-immortality and demigod companions causes active harm to the game as a whole; certainly in the long run. They realize their demands efficiently trivialize and remove group content from the game. It's just that this is something that has no relevancy to them at all, not when other scale has " me me me I want things fast and easy! I'm a busy father of two with a career and six max lvl characters. Somehow, this all means everything must be so easy it feels easy even for me!"

 

Most people I know agree that companions needed a nerf. It's the degree to which they were nerfed that's the problem. Again, a dedicated healer companion can't outheal a damage spec player. One that isn't off-healing. That's a problem.

[XiamaraSimi]

Edit- Just wanted to add that, unlike pre-Kotfe, Companions are going to be judged by how well they perform while soloing Heroic 2's for all classes, not just some classes.

 

This. There is a -huge- difference in playability between my tanking assassin with a 50 influence healer, and my marauder with a 50 influence heal companion.

 

Then you throw in the awful AI, two days ago then 48 influence Theron decided he should just stop healing altogether, alternating between picking his nose and occasionally pew pew pewing the mobs (he was full health so didnt need to heal himself, and he was only 2 feet away from me so it wasnt a line of sight issue)

 

If it had been my marauder she would have been toast, thankfully it was my tank who had defensive cool downs but yeah, sometimes they see a butterfly or something and just stop healing...

Edited November 22, 2015 by XiamaraSimi

[Stradlin]

Most people I know agree that companions needed a nerf. It's the degree to which they were nerfed that's the problem. Again, a dedicated healer companion can't outheal a damage spec player. One that isn't off-healing. That's a problem.

 

Not sure if an NPC not being as good as your fellow player is some extremely malign concept, heh.

[DakhathKilrathi]

Not sure if an NPC not being as good as your fellow player is some extremely malign concept, heh.

 

It's not that they aren't "not as good". It's that they can't heal for more than a damage spec's self heals. They aren't even comparable to a player in the same role, which is a problem if they're supposed to fill that role for heroics (which they are, per Musco's earlier post).

 

Here's a comparison of two healer companions from a fight in a heroic star fortress. Different instances of the same fight. Note that high rank Lana can't even clear 1k HPS, and for both of them they only barely outhealed my self heals as a damage player. An average to decent player in heal spec can easily manage 6k HPS. Companions (with the apparent exception of Treek for some reason) are barely 1/6 of that.

 

Do you really not see how that's a problem?

Edited November 22, 2015 by DakhathKilrathi

[Shipwright]

No they aren't. Companions in the current state can barely outheal the self heals a Madness/Balance Sorc/Sage gets from their rotation alone. Low rank companions can't outheal it. Madness/Balance is damage, in case you didn't know that. Do you really think that dedicated healer companions shouldn't be outhealing a damage spec?

 

No, they weren't god mode before 4.0, but they were better than they are right now. I could deal with pre-4.0 companions, but that isn't what we got.

 

This is the thing that struck me as absurd. In healing stance, a companion does less than off heals from a dps toon.

 

I usually play a healer so I did not see this right away. After hearing news of exceptionally low heals from companions, I tried respeccing to dps on some healers.

 

The companion heals were far below the off heals from dps specs. I mean, really bad. I expected that I heard/read exaggerated claims, but wow are they bad. It would do better to heal yourself, if you are fortunate to have heals as part of the class, rather than using a healer companion.

 

Anyway, this is supposedly being addressed eventually. No idea what that really means, though. For all I know, they could just discuss ideas behind the scenes among themselves, and call it "addressing the issue".

[Senkoau]

It is a rare thing to see as selfish and entitled community as one SW:TOR is stuck with. Depths of entitlement that people reach appear limitless, when it comes to content and what people feel they should be able to easily solo.

 

Everybody throwing a hissyfit about companion nerfs realizes well that concept of having semi-immortality and demigod companions causes active harm to the game as a whole; certainly in the long run. They realize their demands efficiently trivialize and remove group content from the game. It's just that this is something that has no relevancy to them at all, not when other scale has " me me me I want things fast and easy! I'm a busy father of two with a career and six max lvl characters. Somehow, this all means everything must be so easy it feels easy even for me!"

 

SW:TOR with nerfed companions is so easy that it is extremely difficult to actually learn how to play the game. Aftermath of it all might teach one something about human nature tho.

 

Obviously I'm not playing the game and neither is any other casual/new person without legacy buffs, datacrons and a detailed knowledge of when and where to use the numerous abilities we do have. I must have just imagined those times I died on various heroics since the companions prevented it. I guess I should just L2P with the current system where depending on the mobs/mission either I or the mobs die in seconds and I can instantly figure out how to improve my rotation so they don't die to 1/2 basic attacks or my gear so I don't get ripped to pieces by the 5 gold mobs I have on me.

[Potima_Wolf]

No they aren't. Companions in the current state can barely outheal the self heals a Madness/Balance Sorc/Sage gets from their rotation alone. Low rank companions can't outheal it. Madness/Balance is damage, in case you didn't know that. Do you really think that dedicated healer companions shouldn't be outhealing a damage spec?

 

No, they weren't god mode before 4.0, but they were better than they are right now. I could deal with pre-4.0 companions, but that isn't what we got.

 

I assumed that they were similar pre 4.0 from intuition playing the game. Totally probably wrong though...

[Draqsko]

It is a rare thing to see as selfish and entitled community as one SW:TOR is stuck with. Depths of entitlement that people reach appear limitless, when it comes to content and what people feel they should be able to easily solo.

 

Everybody throwing a hissyfit about companion nerfs realizes well that concept of having semi-immortality and demigod companions causes active harm to the game as a whole; certainly in the long run. They realize their demands efficiently trivialize and remove group content from the game. It's just that this is something that has no relevancy to them at all, not when other scale has " me me me I want things fast and easy! I'm a busy father of two with a career and six max lvl characters. Somehow, this all means everything must be so easy it feels easy even for me!"

 

SW:TOR with nerfed companions is so easy that it is extremely difficult to actually learn how to play the game. Aftermath of it all might teach one something about human nature tho.

 

And it is not selfish and entitled to try to foster your belief in what the game should be on others?

[Draqsko]

It's not that they aren't "not as good". It's that they can't heal for more than a damage spec's self heals. They aren't even comparable to a player in the same role, which is a problem if they're supposed to fill that role for heroics (which they are, per Musco's earlier post).

 

Here's a comparison of two healer companions from a fight in a heroic star fortress. Different instances of the same fight. Note that high rank Lana can't even clear 1k HPS, and for both of them they only barely outhealed my self heals as a damage player. An average to decent player in heal spec can easily manage 6k HPS. Companions (with the apparent exception of Treek for some reason) are barely 1/6 of that.

 

Do you really not see how that's a problem?

 

Or how about this:

 

http://imgur.com/a/tX5fh

 

Guardian Focused Defense outheals companion's biggest heal, 24 ticks of FD healed for 130k, 24 ticks of Kolto Quick Scan healed for 96k. In fact, my FD outhealed all of Doc's skills individually and it's only used twice in that fight with a 2 minute cooldown.

[Potima_Wolf]

Having Heroics being pretty much the only end game grind content combined with level sync isn't very fun for the more casual crowd

 

The problem with grinding out heroics imo is not the incoming DPS but rather the HPs of the gold mobs. Level Sync slows the game down.

 

Strength of of a companions heals (assuming a player being a dpser) isn't going to make the game anymore fun as that content is the same, at least imo.

 

Id prefere higher dps but lower HP opposition. Cuase more alpha but incoming DPS is rapidly diminished as the mobs gets hacked down. Would also mean less Grind.

 

Though I wish there was a more traditional daily location because endless heroics is quite quite dull.

[Stradlin]

It's not that they aren't "not as good". It's that they can't heal for more than a damage spec's self heals. They aren't even comparable to a player in the same role, which is a problem if they're supposed to fill that role for heroics (which they are, per Musco's earlier post).

 

Here's a comparison of two healer companions from a fight in a heroic star fortress. Different instances of the same fight. Note that high rank Lana can't even clear 1k HPS, and for both of them they only barely outhealed my self heals as a damage player. An average to decent player in heal spec can easily manage 6k HPS. Companions (with the apparent exception of Treek for some reason) are barely 1/6 of that.

 

Do you really not see how that's a problem?

 

It is very nice to see some proper theorycrafting taking place!

 

I think the moment where waters between solo content and top notch level of (small) group content ( ie heroic Star Fortress) turn very muddy due to how powerful companions are, is also the moment where companions are too powerful. Concept that one companion = one player is kinda terrifying. This multi player game has pretty healthy dose of solo-exclusive content as it is. On the other hand, we are sorely lacking genuinely difficult small group content.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Stradlin

[ForceWelder]

I had no problems doing the Voss heroics as a Marauder. But I think the mission you refer to is Republic only.

 

May be it is. Honestly, I haven't had a desire to tackle heroics in a very long time.

 

But the point still remains. For this mission, any class without heals or a mezz you can put down on biological targets is probably not going to survive for long. One of the beauties of the trooper class is that ammo consumption is not really an issue unless your rotation is just beyond bad. And finishing a fight with 5 silver and golds only has take actual surviving long enough to kill everything into consideration.

 

But when I think about my smuggler, I just don't see this class being able to put up sufficient defense to hold out on 4 golds beating on him. Or having sufficient ammo generation to finish that many mobs off solo.

 

With the OP healers, I could see it. But right now. Not so much.

[jpswtor]

It also amuses me how the critics assume that they lose a "Majority" of their subscriber base, when 90% of the people probably don't care either way.

 

And it amuses me to no end how people always say "90%" or even "99%" of something when they really have no clue whatsoever and just pull numbers out of their backside.

 

Of course I don't know for sure either, but it seems much more plausible that they lost more than 50% (hence the majority) of their subscribers since launch. That's part of the reason we have to suffer the Cartel Market.

 

But hey, they have their mighty metrics. Maybe the people leaving get balanced out by even more new players waving big wads of cash at them while swarming the game since 4.0 launched.

 

To get back to the subject: I never understood why people get upset by overpowered companions. If they enjoy taking longer to grind through boring mob after boring mob they could send their companion to sell junk or craft stuff. Voila, problem solved.

 

Cheers

 

JP

[parchedgoose]

What did you do in the 4 years before Kofte?

 

Its not like a new game where comps are implemented op then nerfed. They're at a similar lvl to pre 4.0 which imo is what they should have been initially

 

pre 4.0 companions could be geared specific to role

pre 4.0 there was no level sync so if content was a bit to difficult you could out level it and still do it

pre 4.0 crafting actually was worth while

pre 4.0 Treek and HK were actually worth while

post 4.1 they are all really broken now

 

so no they are not even close to what they used to be pre 4.0 or after the recent patch though 4.0 made an attempt at making them at least somewhat useful. if they gave us back the pre 4.0 comps/gearing and removed level sync I could live with that.

[DakhathKilrathi]

It is very nice to see some proper theorycrafting taking place!

 

I think the moment where waters between solo content and top notch level of (small) group content ( ie heroic Star Fortress) turn very muddy due to how powerful companions are, is also the moment where companions are too powerful. Concept that one companion = one player is kinda terrifying. This multi player game has pretty healthy dose of solo-exclusive content as it is. On the other hand, we are sorely lacking genuinely difficult small group content.

 

This game doesn't have difficult content outside of operations (and I'm not sure those count). It has time consuming and tedious content. It has grinds. And whether it needs difficult small group content or not, the place for that isn't in something you're supposed to run repeatedly. That's when it becomes tedious and grindy.

 

I'd be fine with companions that were even half as effective as a player.

[Beachdudeca]

Its been talked about already in other threads , but what the heck

 

This is not just about the amount being healed , though companion heals were nuked dow to absurd levels ,

 

Its also about the Broken Healing Script for Healer Companions, and the fact that Companion Tanks had their Damage Mitigation Removed ,

 

No Off hands , means no Shields , and no Absorbs ,

 

The result , being that the harder Heroic Fights , Gree, Rak Tunnels, and SF , are now non viable unless you have players because companions can only fill a DPS role.Plus , because of the NERF , you can not bring a Companion into a Flash Point any longer when you need to fill a spot to complete a mission.

 

I get that some players want more challenge , but if thats what they want the content exists , HM Flash Points, HM & NIM OPS, heck even PVP if you want to go in without a premade.

 

But its silly to expect that all content be a long hard grind , and there would not be a push back on the time vs reward issue that came up

[Draqsko]

Its been talked about already in other threads , but what the heck

 

This is not just about the amount being healed , though companion heals were nuked dow to absurd levels ,

 

Its also about the Broken Healing Script for Healer Companions, and the fact that Companion Tanks had their Damage Mitigation Removed ,

 

No Off hands , means no Shields , and no Absorbs ,

 

The result , being that the harder Heroic Fights , Gree, Rak Tunnels, and SF , are now non viable unless you have players because companions can only fill a DPS role.Plus , because of the NERF , you can not bring a Companion into a Flash Point any longer when you need to fill a spot to complete a mission.

 

I get that some players want more challenge , but if thats what they want the content exists , HM Flash Points, HM & NIM OPS, heck even PVP if you want to go in without a premade.

 

But its silly to expect that all content be a long hard grind , and there would not be a push back on the time vs reward issue that came up

 

You can also add that even the supposedly challenging stuff like Operations moved away from the grind. How many recall having to farm Black Hole comms to min-max Ops token gear because the stats were not optimized, DPS and heal set bonuses had tank armorings in some pieces, melee had alacrity, high endurance enhancements for DPS and healers, total accuracy being twice what you needed for 100/110, etc.

[nimmerstil]

Too good companions pretty much erase any measure of required gameplay from your game.

 

Maybe, and maybe they overdid it. I find it odd that my healer PC is doing more damage then her dps companion. Well, good thing is I'll steal aggro more often and need to heal them less.

[Deyjarl]

Or how about this:

 

http://imgur.com/a/tX5fh

 

Guardian Focused Defense outheals companion's biggest heal, 24 ticks of FD healed for 130k, 24 ticks of Kolto Quick Scan healed for 96k. In fact, my FD outhealed all of Doc's skills individually and it's only used twice in that fight with a 2 minute cooldown.

 

And? How about FD compared to player healing?

[Darth_Victus]

Well, they've already announced they'll be buffing them again.

Now it remains to be seen to what extent.

 

It's BioWare. They are going to shoot for the stars!

 

Revenge of the OP Companion, coming to a patch near you this Monday!