Brainless

[akisgood]

If I pick out a particular class, I am sure that its fans will have something to say about it, so I won't do that.

 

In my opinion, pvp could benefit from a lot more complexity in the classes. As it stands, it is quite boring because so much can be achieved with minimal thought and effort via certain kits, defensives and rotations. I understand that you don't want to intimidate new players, but I think that older players would be entertained far more if some of the specs were made more interesting rather than no RNG 5 button snooze fests, or if thoughtful play was rewarded more often.

Edited March 8, 2017 by akisgood

[Wimbleton]

Not sure I agree. I have about 7 main buttons to use as a heal sorc but I have probably 40 things hotkeyd. Classes have alot they can do that people overlook to stick to their 5-7 main buttons because they are chasing that top DPS/HPS number.

 

I think the potential to do more is already in most classes, but they limit themselves to those 5-7 buttons and it makes it seem as you say.

[akisgood]

Are you saying that you find sorc healing in pvp complex? That is interesting. I see that you are primarily a sorc player, do you think that you are able to be impartial with respect to the relative payoffs of each spec at low skill level? This is not a barb, I am curious as to what you think about yourself. Have you tried the other healing specs? Do you find sorc to be boring at all? Could you specify what exactly you have keybound because this is rather more than the total number of possible abilities of a sorc including consumables?

 

To clarify further, I guess my issue personally is how much can be achieved with few buttons as a proportion of the best possible and how little thought is required which leads to your brain going to sleep. They seem to have intentionally reduced/removed the RNG from a lot of (especially DPS) specs, and I think that this makes things less fun.

Edited March 8, 2017 by akisgood

[mitchsts]

i agree, i think they need to start adding more instead of taking things away like have been doing. seems like classes are getting simpler and simpler every time bioware puts out a big patch. you will never get them to change their minds though, they obviously already think the game is too complicated. and once they set their minds to something, there is no changing direction. except for gearing. they thought we only want that part to be complex for some reason.

[Icykill_]

If it got any more complex the people who play consoles normally or the people Bio dumbed the game down for.. wouldn't be able to play.

There are some easier classes for the reason that people have to start somewhere. And there are some more complex classes that require more skill. Not all classes are even when it comes to skill required to play them properly.

That doesn't mean the easier classes can't be complex. You can go onto really master them and learn to use everything they have and it takes you to a whole other lvl of skill on that class.

Most newbies or even casuals don't play the classes to their full potential or not to the complexities of their class. As long as their 5 button spam gets the job done they never will. It's why OP classes are the easiest to play with minimal effort, so those people flock to them and they become FOTM. More skilled players can stick it out on other classes and show those FOTM guys that easy doesn't mean good. What's sad is when those higher skilled players flock to the easiest FOTM classes too 😢

I think what the real issue is player skill in pvp has dropped significantly. So people will never learn to play their classes to their full potential. The less skilled the population, the easier it becomes to spam 5 buttons to get the job done.

[Torvai]

Things I have keybound on my main, a sin tank: Short answer: Everything. Long answer:

Rotational abilities: Saber Strike, Thrash, Dark Ward, Shock, Depredating Volts, Wither, Discharge, Assasinate, Lacerate, Maul, Single Taunt, AoE Taunt, Guard - Already more than twice than the 5 you claim

Situational abilities: Pull, Knockback, Slow, Whirlwind, Spike, Electrocute, Interrupt, Out of Combat Mezz, Stunbreak, Phantom Stride, Stealth

Dcds: Deflection, Overcharge Saber, Sprint, Shroud, Recklessness, Vanish, Adrenal, Relic, Medpack

And some fluff like a mount and rocket boots.

But overall, stuff I use regularily in PvP that's like 34 Skills(I'm sure I missed one or two:o).

So no you don't use "5-7" buttons.

 

Yes, every spec is fairly simple in it's basic rotation. And if you don't use more than that then yes, it is boring. But especially in PvP, you don't use only 5 buttons. Not if you do it right.

And there's a lot of potential to maximise perfomance. Just as an example, had a civil war yesterday, two Maras. One did ~3mio damage, another, who was within the same zerg at mid the whole time, did 500k.

And mara is actually the prime example for this. It's rather easy to play at a low skill level. But to maximise it's potential you need alot more than 5 buttons. And, especially with carnage, you need to achieve a ridiculous apm. Which is, imo, the biggest factor between a bad and a good player.

[Icykill_]

Things I have keybound on my main, a sin tank: Short answer: Everything. Long answer:

Rotational abilities: Saber Strike, Thrash, Dark Ward, Shock, Depredating Volts, Wither, Discharge, Assasinate, Lacerate, Maul, Single Taunt, AoE Taunt, Guard - Already more than twice than the 5 you claim

Situational abilities: Pull, Knockback, Slow, Whirlwind, Spike, Electrocute, Interrupt, Out of Combat Mezz, Stunbreak, Phantom Stride, Stealth

Dcds: Deflection, Overcharge Saber, Sprint, Shroud, Recklessness, Vanish, Adrenal, Relic, Medpack

And some fluff like a mount and rocket boots.

But overall, stuff I use regularily in PvP that's like 34 Skills(I'm sure I missed one or two:o).

So no you don't use "5-7" buttons.

 

Yes, every spec is fairly simple in it's basic rotation. And if you don't use more than that then yes, it is boring. But especially in PvP, you don't use only 5 buttons. Not if you do it right.

And there's a lot of potential to maximise perfomance. Just as an example, had a civil war yesterday, two Maras. One did ~3mio damage, another, who was within the same zerg at mid the whole time, did 500k.

And mara is actually the prime example for this. It's rather easy to play at a low skill level. But to maximise it's potential you need alot more than 5 buttons. And, especially with carnage, you need to achieve a ridiculous apm. Which is, imo, the biggest factor between a bad and a good player.

 

People who keybind everything know how to use most of them.. when I say 5 buttons I was generalising and really meant 5 abilities and those guys are probably only clickers, not that there's anything wrong with clickers, it's just that they are more likely to be the people using only 5-7 abilities.

[Opaknack]

Thread tilte = Brainless

 

... heal sorc ...

 

[Wimbleton]

Are you saying that you find sorc healing in pvp complex? That is interesting. I see that you are primarily a sorc player, do you think that you are able to be impartial with respect to the relative payoffs of each spec at low skill level? This is not a barb, I am curious as to what you think about yourself. Have you tried the other healing specs? Do you find sorc to be boring at all? Could you specify what exactly you have keybound because this is rather more than the total number of possible abilities of a sorc including consumables?

 

To clarify further, I guess my issue personally is how much can be achieved with few buttons as a proportion of the best possible and how little thought is required which leads to your brain going to sleep. They seem to have intentionally reduced/removed the RNG from a lot of (especially DPS) specs, and I think that this makes things less fun.

 

How did you get that I said sorc heal is complex? Where did I say that? Please point it out.

 

What I said is that alot of people leave alot of their class on the table. You're likely one of those people.

 

The game is not going to get more complex. You don't have to be very bright to understand that. Amirite?

 

So my point was, while the game is not "hard" or "complex" there are still ways to expand on what your class can do, in most cases, with almost every player.

 

For example, as a sorc healer or any healer, I rarely see anyone else combat revive in reg warzones.

 

Seems pretty fkn simple to me, if you need more explanation lemme know.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Wimbleton

[akisgood]

It is unfortunate that people often seem to get personal and defensive on the forums when the principle aim is to discuss the game. This thread is not about you and you seem to have misread my tone of questioning completely. Frankly, I would appreciate if you could try to offer your opinions in as unbiased a manner as you can, but I know this can be hard. I think I will pass on your kind offer of tuition, although I am sure that you are an extremely intelligent, skilled and special individual.

 

I am glad someone brought up assassin tank because I am, in general, a fan of how things work with the tanks; you can get slightly more out of playing the more complex choice (especially in pve but this is not the place for that). I don't think it would be particularly hard or particularly controversial for bioware to tweak various specs so that you can choose whether to play something simple for perfectly adequate output or something more indepth for more reward. In practical terms, this would probably mean keeping the idea of having simpler burst specs and more interesting sustained dps specs but increasing the margin of potential damage between them.

 

I'm not sure how long you guys have been playing the game but there has been an unmistakeable trend of the reduction of RNG and meaningful choices in dps disciplines especially. What I would be interested to know is whether anyone is actually against having more choices to make in the game. I am not interested at all to hear people take a defensive standpoint over various classes; at this point most veteran players have tried and enjoyed them all.

Edited March 9, 2017 by akisgood

[Ramalina]

Are you saying that you find sorc healing in pvp complex? That is interesting. I see that you are primarily a sorc player, do you think that you are able to be impartial with respect to the relative payoffs of each spec at low skill level? This is not a barb, I am curious as to what you think about yourself. Have you tried the other healing specs? Do you find sorc to be boring at all? Could you specify what exactly you have keybound because this is rather more than the total number of possible abilities of a sorc including consumables?

 

[Emperor Palpatine voice]

You fool, you underestimate the number of abilities available to the Sith Sorcerer.

[/Emperor Palpatine voice]

 

 

 

Being a Seer, of course I don't have any truck with that, "stick your finger in a power socket just to see what happens," type nonsense, but here's a rough charting of my quickbars.

 

Some of these names are how I think of them rather than actual official names (which I can't be bothered to look up) but:

 

Row 1 keybinds

Deliverance, Salvation, Rejuvenation, Healing Trance, Force Armor, Force Speed, Stun, Force Wave, Hard cast DoT, Throw little rocks, Wandering Mend, Benevolence

 

Row 2 keybinds

Interrupt, Cleanse, Bubble of Invincibility, Make my S**t Crit, Disturbance, Hurry Up and Cast, Unstun, Forcequake, Mend, Insta-DoT, Throw BIG rock, Ultimate Wedgie (aka Force lift)

 

Row 3 keybinds

Go Slow, Get Back Here (rescue), Not The Face! (threat drop), Adrenal, Force Regen, Yellow Submarine (vehicle), Class buffs, Battle Rez, Medpac, WZ adrenal, Meditation, Phase walk.

 

Row 4 keybinds

Raid buff, Rocket boots, Hit things with Lightsaber, Darvannis sandstorm shield, Macrobinoculars (***, why are these bound?), Heroic Moment.

 

Clicky Crap, not keybound.

Out of Combat Rez (this should be bound), GSI seeker droid, Healer Raid Marker, Fleet Pass, Quick Travel, Sprint, Odessen Quick Travel, DPS Raid Marker, WZ medpac, Repair Droid, Model Clarion pet, Class Ship Quick Travel, Tank Raid marker, Mail droid.

 

 

At any rate, by my count that makes 36 class abilities, 2 consumables, and if you use activated relics that takes you up to 40 abilities potentially worth having bound for use during combat. Plus at least another ten or more that you can get by with just clicking, but might rate space on a bar for out of combat utility.

 

Given that a Sorc is a mirror class for the Sage I'd wager that they can also get to 40 abilities without breaking a sweat.

 

 

I will certainly allow that a Sage or Sorc healer can get by in PvP against 2 to 6 incompetent DPS simply by running in circles and spamming AOE heals. On the other hand, a DPS Sorc can do pretty much the same with their healing, which says more about how bad the typical reg DPS player is than anything else.

 

On the other hand, once you realize that letting Wandering Mend hit more than two targets is doing it wrong, becoming a skilled Sage/Sorc healer has quite a bit of depth to it. Fluff AOE is worthless. The Sage strengths are burst healing, mobility, and crowd control. If you're not doing things like fishing for the enemy DPS to blow their burst cooldowns (except for electronet) on your bubble (ideally with guard and taunts going on too), and then coming out and mixing CC and positioning to turn it from a 4v4 into a 4v2 or 4v1, then you're leaving a lot of the better tools just gathering dust in the toolbox.

 

A weak Sage or Sorc healer might keep people alive, a great one is going to be setting up kill opportunities for their team at about the same rate as the DPS and the tank. Their damage stinks, so you need competent DPS for that, but you can create a situation where if the DPS fumble the opportunity it's the fumble that lost the kill, not that a kill was impossible.

 

At my best I barely graze being a good, never mind great, PvP healer, but the difference between lousy to average and great is just as obvious in healing classes as it is in DPS or tank classes. Most of my guild takes PvP more seriously than I do, so I have fairly regular chances to see examples of medium to high end performance.

 

A lot of what makes the greats great is that they are getting every bit of value out of every applicable tool rather than settling for an adequate but easy 5 button rotation. Class balance fluctuates, but the traits of the highest end players are pretty stable.

 

The actual DPS has always been pretty mindless (same for healing and tanking), the real payoff for brainpower in PvP is in using the utilities and coordination that allow the DPS (or HPS or protection) to actually count for something instead of just fluff numbers on the scoreboard.