Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular Changes

[Equeliber]

So seeing this, and the patch notes, I wonder...

 

Did Infiltration/Deception force management just become a pain in the butt again? Seeing how our rotation was dependent on the force regeneration from blackout/force cloak/blackout on resets?

 

Pretty sure it's going to be perfectly fine as we can easily maintain 100% uptime on the 25% force regen buff. And now we also have 15% damage reduction all the time. Well, if we can actually land Maul every 15 secs. Which should not be a problem.

[MortemXFive]

DO NOT TAKE AWAY THRASH WITHOUT REPLACING IT WITH ANOTHER LIGHTSABER ABILLITY!!

 

I am NOT A LEMMING or a SHEEPLE! I do NOT play my characters only one way!

 

I like to hit things with my lightsaber on my Sorcerer Healer when they get close, and sometimes I go up to enemies to hit them with my lightsaber, because it is fun and cool! It is a HUGE part of any Jedi or Sith character! The lightsaber is iconic to these character classes. I am not playing Gandalf The Grey!! I am playing Jedi and Sith, and I want to be able to use a lightsaber. Remember that the core of this game is MMO PvE. DO NOT forget that this is supposed to be a multiplayer RPG. You guys already botched that with Knights Of The Fallen Empire which turned the end game into a single player only game. The only thing we can do with it in multiplayer is that star fortress maze which becomes monotonous fast!

 

You are taking the Star Wars out of these Star Wars character classes. These Jedi and Sith force mastery classes should be masters of the lightsaber as well as the force. That lightsaber and it's use is an Icon that must be an equally important part to these classes as force use. You need to add in more lightsaber abilities. Look my Sorcerer healer has 3 ways to do the exact same thing: Shoot lightning at one target. Why do I need 3 powers to do that exact same thing: One instant shock, One cast lightning strike and one channeled lightning strike. You could chop that down to one instant cast, and one channeled ability then add in another lightsaber ability.

 

You should be giving them another lightsaber power, not taking one away. If you make each class so that there is only one way to play it, requiring power rotations to play it, then the game becomes monotonous, like working the assembly line at the JEEP plant or playing Pac Man and following the pattern.

 

^^^^ THIS is fantastically on point from the PoV of someone who main's a Sorceror like myself. I also have to agree that removing phase walk from a class that is supposed to be mobile like Assassin is equally counter-productive. To reiterate what this guy said, the developers are taking versatility and the overall feel of Star Wars out of the classes with this expansion. The feeling of choice is essential to MMORPG's and RPG's in general. I seriously tried playing with the changes throughout the day with early access, and I could not even begin to get the hang of them. Nothing but frustration and disappointment. I've never really posted anything on these forums before or bothered much with my profile, but this time I feel like I must say something because this isn't something I can ignore. This may be the final nail in the coffin for this game for me.

Edited November 30, 2016 by MortemXFive

[vadess]

I know I'm gonna have darts thrown at me...

 

But....

 

I actually like the new assassin changes, phase walk-less and all...

 

Thanks bioware

 

 

[Vego_Mohenjo]

I don't understand any of this. WHY was this done, I see no benefit to ANY of these changes.

 

I'm still evaluating, but I'm very unhappy with the game in general now. I really can't fathom what they're thinking.

[vadess]

I don't understand any of this. WHY was this done, I see no benefit to ANY of these changes.

 

I'm still evaluating, but I'm very unhappy with the game in general now. I really can't fathom what they're thinking.

 

 

Wow, you're late to the party. Have you actually tried playing the classes with the new changes? I think assassins are in a good spot, personally.

[Vego_Mohenjo]

I was away for a while, attending to finishing my degree, and was really looking forward to continuing the adventures of my various characters.

 

Unfortunately, I can't say I like what I find now that I've returned.

 

Apparently, update 5.0 completely ruined almost ALL of my characters, taking away key skills I had been using all the time. I'll explain my dissatisfaction, in the hope that someone in development might see this and understand.

 

It's going to be a LONG post, so be aware.

 

I'll begin with my Imperials.

 

My Sith Juggernaut is Rath. He's a big, brawny, bully of a pureblood Sith. Thus, I found myself rather perturbed when I used the Ravage skill, and found the wonderful original animation had been replaced by a silly, flippy, acrobatic manuever, completely out of character for Rath. For a Marauder, that kind of acrobatic move might be appropriate, but a Juggernaut is generally about raw power and strength. This is the class Darth Vader would have been, after all, and I don't see him flipping and somersaulting around.

So, I went out to do some adventuring, and thought to switch to Shii-Cho form, to clear away the cannon fodder with a little more damage output. However, I found that I no longer have that CHOICE. I'm FORCED into using Soresu all the time. That bothered me, but it wasn't a disaster. The shock came when I switched to Vengeance for dps. I found to my dismay that the character now giggled through every battle. I've commented elsewhere about this, so I'll only say that giggling like a child is NOT appropriate for a Sith Warrior. This is a character class driven by RAGE, and it's totally out of character to be giggling in battle.

All in all, however, Rath plays more or less as I have been used to, though I didn't see the need for these changes.

 

Next up is Valfor, my Sith Sorceror. Valfor was created around the idea that he is pure evil. He uses Lightning as his main focus, and so has been almost entirely a ranged combatant. As such, I barely noticed that he is missing his ONLY real melee ability, his Dual Slash saber attack. Now, as I said, this wasn't a crippling loss for this character, but it was disappointing. The Jedi and the Sith are best known for their lightsabers, and now the Sorceror has had it rendered all but cosmetic. Even the Emperor (who would certainly be a Sorceror-type) was capable of daunting melee skill, yet here we've had ALL such capability taken away. My real problem with it here is that there's no REASON for it. It can't possibly have been a balance issue, so what is the point of stripping this ability away? Again, the CHOICE of doing a bit of melee is taken away, and we are FORCED to be ONLY a ranged class. Moreover, he's not even especially effective AS a ranged class. His damage is now inexplicably anemic, he can't really heal himself adequately and he has precious little ability to absorb damage.

 

Finally, we come to Iblis, my Sniper. More or less my main character, Iblis is a cold, robotic assassin, a powerful sniper who plays more or less as you expect a sniper to do. However, I did notice that ALL his melee skills have been taken away from him. No more Shiv, no more Debilitate, even though these were core skills for the Agent class that I used FREQUENTLY. Yes, he's a ranged class, but we're GOING to be in melee in this game regardless, so SOME kind of melee ability is mandated. This is true of the other ranged classes, as it is for the Sniper. However, the most painful loss is that of his Overloaded Shot. This was the ONLY skill he could use while moving, and it has been taken away. That's crippling, considering how important mobility is in this game. So, he's stuck ONLY being a turret. Once again, I'm FORCED into it, I have no CHOICE of how I want to play it.

 

I have a Bounty Hunter, Skorr, but haven't played him yet. I had been planning on making him a Powertech, but I understand he would be forced to be nearly exclusively melee. Not at ALL like Boba Fett, the character he's based on. I would have made him a Mercenary, but I don't want to be using dual pistols. Ideally, he should be using a blaster RIFLE, like every other Bounty Hunter in the movies.

 

That brings us to the Republic characters, and BOY what a disaster this is.

 

First up is Stene. He's a Jedi Guardian, and I haven't played him yet since the update, but I expect he'll be in the same position as Rath. I expect he'll be basically all right.

 

However, after that comes Shein. He's a Jedi Sage. His backstory has him growing up in the slums of Coruscant, an orphan child using the Force to survive. He was concieved as a Jedi Batman. That meant that, unlike most Sages, he would get into melee a lot. I made EXTENSIVE use of his Dual Slash skill, and was enjoying the character greatly. Of course, they've now taken away all his melee skills, and are FORCING me into ONLY a ranged style of play. That SEVERELY disrupts the way I had been playing the character, and as with the Sorceror, there's NO REASON FOR IT. I'm sure many players didn't use the skill. No one was forcing them to use it. Now that it's been taken away, I don't have a CHOICE, I'm FORCED to not use it. Now, I know there will be those who say I should just have made him a Shadow. However, the Shadow uses the Saber Staff, which I loathe, and I've already played the character to somewhere around L50, and I'm not about to delete him (again). In addition to that, I understand the Shadow/Assassin classes have been at least as severely damaged by having nearly all their ranged capability taken away.

 

Next up we have Lyyr Flinn, my Smuggler. He was concieved to "be" Han Solo, so I originally made him a Scoundrel. However, there were a couple of problems. First, I didn't enjoy the close combat kind of style of that class. Solo is more shooty than the Scoundrel is, and prefers a straight fight to all the sneaking around. Second, I couldn't abide the endless damn giggling through every battle. If you look back through my posts, you'll find that I had to stop playing my Operative because of this incessant giggling. I just can't play the character if he's I'm FORCED to giggle like an idiot through every fight. So, I made him a Gunslinger. Han Solo only uses one blaster, so I decided to play with only one blaster, knowing full well I'd be gimping myself. That was MY CHOICE, and I accepted the consequences of it (I did keep a second blaster in my inventory so I could contribute appropriately in groups). So, with many skills unavailable, Overload Shot and Charged Shot became his only real attacks. He would stay mobile, blasting mainly with Overload Shot, Pistol Whipping, Dirty Kicking enemies into submission. You may notice that the three skills that formed the core of ALL my gameplay on the character have now been taken away from him. He has NO skills left to use, the character has been rendered unplayable, and as before, there is NO REASON FOR IT.

 

Finally, we come to my Trooper, Mohenjo. He's my namesake in the game, and WAS one of my favourites to play. However, over the years they have systematically ruined him, over and over.

Initially, he was a Combat Medic, but I found that class was almost incapable of soloing because offensive skills were prohibitively expensive. I didn't feel much like the hero when I was was hanging back waiting on Jorgan while HE did everything. So, I switched to Gunnery. I didn't care for the particle effects on many of the abilities, the swirling ribbons and whatnot, but they were brief, so I learned to live with it. Then I encountered Boltstorm, and the idiotic stream of bubbles it changed Full Auto into.

Now, in the old days, we had the CHOICE of constructing out characters as we pleased, so I could simply not take Boltstorm. However, they redesigned the trait specs, and FORCED me to have Boltstorm, replacing one of my favourite skills with an idiotic looking bubblegun. So, I switched AGAIN, going to Assault Specialist. However, if you've played that, you know that the Assault Specialist spends all of every battle constantly GIGGLING like a damn fool.

Thus, I can't play as a Combat Medic, I can't play Gunnery, and I can't play Assault Specialist. However, I had been swallowing it and carried on as an Assault Specialist, even though it stressed and frustrated me constantly. Now, I come back to find that some of my core skills are gone. I no longer have the Ion Pulse Cannon ability, which was CRUCIAL when facing multiple melee enemies (such as Kiliks, Sith, etc.). Indeed, I no longer even have the Stock Strike skill. ALL my melee abilities have been taken away, once again for NO REASON.

 

So, I feel that all my characters have been savaged, some worse than others, by the inexplicable changes in 5.0. It's INCREDIBLY frustrating, because there's NO REASON for any of it. These changes take away versatility, they take away any CHOICE we might have had in HOW we wanted to play our characters, and there's NOTHING gained by FORCING this on us.

When Star Wars Galaxies did the same kind of thing, it all but destroyed the game. The playerbase vanished overnight, and never recovered.

 

Put another way, before the changes, players had the choice to play their character how they liked. If I wanted to play my Sage as a melee character, I could. It didn't affect anyone else if I did. If someone else wanted to play as a ranged character, they could. It also didn't affect anyone else. NOW, those people don't see much of anything any different. I, however, no longer have a CHOICE.

 

I said it back in beta. I've said it after every unnecessary change. I've said it here, I've said it at EVERY game I've played: DON'T FIX THINGS THAT AREN'T BROKEN. No one ever listens, and I've watched game after game disintigrate after repeated ill-considered and unnecessary changes.

 

The Old Republic STILL is a game with enormous potential that is being unrealized, largely because the developers keep spending all their time breaking things that were working perfectly well. The most important element of an MMO, which will provide it with longevity and depth, is the SANDBOX. That is, there should be things to do besides the quests; crafting, housing, music, PAZAAK, Sabaac, Swoop Racing... this list of possible activities could go on and on. THESE are the kinds of things the developers should be doing, not disrupting classes that were working perfectly well.

 

Many have said it, many times over the last 20 years, giving players more choice, more CONTROL over the way their characters are built is always preferable. Taking away that control is NEVER a good idea.

 

Some will undoubtedly tell me it was done to "streamline" the classes. That's not what has happened. Streamlining involves removing or merging redundant skills, not removing skills that are unique. For instance, Telekinetic Throw and Disturbance to roughly the same thing. Eliminating one of THOSE might streamline the class. Removing a unique melee skill is not streamlining, especially when there are NO other options for melee.

 

The way this should have been handled is to give players a CHOICE of what skills they choose. For instance, perhaps the Sage could be required to choose between having Disturbance OR Dual Slash. In the case of skills that replace existing skills, as Aegis Assault does Sunder, or Boltstorm does Full Auto, the new skill should be ADDED, but put both skills on cooldown for the same duration. That would prevent both skills being used at once, but would allow people who prefer the original skill to keep using it.

 

A couple of other points.

 

First, I suggest a change to weapon proficiencies. Do away with the distinction between Blaster Pistols and Blaster Rifles. Create ONE proficiency called "BLASTER" that allows the use of both. That way, Smugglers could use pistols if they choose to, or rifles if they prefer (as Han did in STAR WARS), and Bounty Hunters could CHOOSE to emulate Boba Fett, Dengar, or any of the other rifle wielding Hunters. There are animations for most of the skills already, so it shouldn't be TOO hard to do.

 

Second, remove the requirement of using dual weapons. I would have made a Sith Marauder before now, but hate the dual sabers. My Gunslinger uses one pistol despite it decreasing his capabilities severely.

 

Let us play OUR characters the way WE want to play them.

[vadess]

That long essay was long, and too little too late to voice now unfortunately. Then again, the changes can be adapted to. Just n need to get used to them. If anything, my sniper and juggernaut and assassin are in a good place becauaw they play smoother to me.

 

Though now I must ask: all the sniper moves can be used at melee range, including maim. So Shiv and debilitated aren't really a huge loss..

[Vego_Mohenjo]

Yeah, my sniper isn't in too bad a shape, but the loss of Shiv and Debilitate are noticable. I mean, we ARE going to be engaged in melee, it's at least more aesthetically pleasing to respond in kind than trying to shoot someone with an extremely long gun in close quarters. Again, I don't see the benefit of the change.

 

The Gunslinger suffers more from this because Dirty Kick and Pistol Whip had SO much more personality than shooting someone in the 'nads. The EFFECTIVENESS hasn't suffered as much as the presentation has. I've been able to salvage my Gunslinger by switching to the Saboteur. I still have to give up Sweeping Fire and Penetrating Shots, but he's at least playable.

 

My Juggernaut and Knight are in decent shape, but I'm REALLY finding the Sage/Sorceror are in a BAD place now, and I'm not sure how to address it. They don't have defense, and with the Force Barrier glowing so hideously now, I may have even less if I stop using it. They don't have much healing capacity unless specced JUST for that, and the DPS specs seem astoundingly weak now.

 

Again, I'm still evaluating and trying to adapt.

 

Part of the point, however, is that it shouldn't be necessary TO adapt. The changes were not needed.

 

(And, sorry for the long essay, it kind of got away from me)

 

ADDENDUM

I should say, the overglowing shield was the result of a trait I'd selected, that zapped enemies when they hit me. I got rid of the trait, and the shield is fine again.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Vego_Mohenjo

[LLCoolBG]

Did anyone notice the Shadow's utility of "Take 30% less damage while stunned and 30% less AoE damage" is now just "Take 30% less damage while stunned."

 

I was super happy when 5.1 dropped and Shadows were nice and buffed. Did I miss this patch notes change or was this something the Devs tried to sneak under the radar? Next on the nerf list is Avenging Grip!!

[BraverDre]

Buff Sorc/Sage DPS. Its not fun to play with such low dps.