Class Changes: Arsenal Merc / Gunnery Commando

[Vodamin]

Based on Bant's spreadsheet, these proposed 5.3 changes will put Mercenary Arsenal/Commando Gunnery below Sorcerer Lightning/Sage Telekinetics

 

Sorcerer - Lightning = 9324.83

Mercenary - Arsenal = 9163.96

 

This is just sad. Lets hope those damage nerfs don't go live. It is ridiculous.

Are they trying to actively kill all range dps specs?

Back to good ole days of 4 sentinels team composition? F**** off BioWare.

[Red_rocks]

The only reason theyre nerfing arsenal is to justify their position that lightning/marksman don't need boosting.

Which is absurd.

Pissing off a large portion of your community to prove to another already unhappy portion of the community that their unhappiness is unwarranted?????? This seems like a pretty f****** dumb decision.

[Evolixe]

For anyone curious. Unless Bant needs to update the rotation to improve the DPS Arsenal may be about to have the worst damage parse in the game.

 

Rofl.

[docbenwayddo]

...

Let us know what you think of the changes coming to Arsenal and Gunnery in GU 5.3. Thanks!

 

Big PVE nerf addressing none of the PVP based complaints.

It's like you thought the spec was no fun for one group of players, so want to make sure it's no fun for all. The issues people playing against mercs in PVP still exist and the people playing mercs in PVE get to have new issues and end up below wet noodle Lightning sorcs.

 

Looks horrible, unnecessary, lacking in proper focus and makes me think my Commandos/Mercs are getting shelved / drastically reduced playtime.

[ZionHalcyon]

Holy crap, its like almost NONE of you read the original class changes post!

 

It doesn't matter if you liked Merc dps the way it was - it was out-performing the intended target for its designated grouping as listed by the initial class post!

 

And I say this AS a primary Arsenal Merc (I have 5).

 

Trauma Regulators will get looked at when they address utlilities.

 

But those whining that they can't do anything about dps without addressing survivability first did not read or understand the initial post, because it explains how they can do EXACTLY that. Trauma Regulators doesn't add or subtract from literal dps, so they don't need to address it to tune actual dps folks.

 

Seriously, re-read the original class change post, as it couldn't be more clear or straightforward.

[Mocaccino]

R.I.P Arsenal Merc.

 

Pve will be dead for us after this update. That's wrong with you ? You killed Marksman, Sorcerer, and now Mercenary !

[Exocor]

In my opinion, this nerf is a bit to hard. I understand, that the merc dps has to be nerfed concerning the simpleness of rotation and energy management. But maybe think of just 50% of the actual planned numbers. That would also fit in my opinion.

[docbenwayddo]

...

 

It doesn't matter if you liked Merc dps the way it was - it was out-performing the intended target for its designated grouping as listed by the initial class post!...

 

The intended target may be the problem.

[RookB]

The DPS nerf is a little extreme. I did the math and it's a 9 percent dps loss (roughly). .

 

I second this. I calculated 8.6% reduction. Also requires about 50% more use of Rapid Shots.

[Hoppinswtor]

Keep Blazing Bolts heat at 16 and it'll probably sit at 9400-9500 dps - roughly at that "-5 percent" threshold the devs talked about.

 

Seems like I'll be playing a lot more IO....

Edited June 17, 2017 by Hoppinswtor

[omaan]

Hey folks,

 

Round 2! Below are the changes planned for Arsenal Merc / Gunnery Commando in Game Update 5.3. Here are the notes from the Combat Team:

 

 

 

Let us know what you think of the changes coming to Arsenal and Gunnery in GU 5.3. Thanks!

 

You guys are Neither playing pvp in swtor nor listen to your players.... its Merc DEFENSES needed to be nerfed not dps lol. The healing stack shield, adrenalin rush to 90% hp, but not dps. So whay we will have how? Range tanks? Jesus, guys dont write that someone from your team is playing pvp, because it is not true

Besides, with nerfing blazing bolts And not nerfing defenses every merc will change to third spec and continue to dominate.

/dissapointed

Edited June 17, 2017 by omaan

[DanNV]

This looks to me to be typical BW "class balance" in that they take something where each part looks like it might be reasonable, but when all the effects are combined you end up with a class that can't complete content and is no longer welcome on a raid team. They did that to my TK Sage and now they are going to do it to my Commando. There is a really good post on the math at http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=924810&page=26 .

 

It look s like i'll be taking my money and go elsewhere come 5.3. Since the design team screwed the game over with 5.0 and killed off alts, I don't have another toon that is in a position to raid, so I have nothing else to swap to. Therefore, since my only current interest in SWTOR is raiding I'll be out in July unless BW rethinks there foolish changes and maybe hires someone who can actually do math and look at stats.

[Dark-Leitsim]

We need a survive nerf not a DPS nerf. Absolutly no agree, with the changes.

[Alssaran]

The intended target may be the problem.

 

The intended target is completely reasonable when you consider how ranged DPS like arsenal mercenaries have a higher uptime on DPS than any melee class. It seems people take dummy parses way too seriously for their own good. A "best case" dummy parse is not the actual raid DPS. They almost never take into account that range and melee DPS have different damage uptimes due to mechanic evasion and the limited range of melee attacks.

 

Whether the heat management of Blazing Bolts needs to be adjustet is a valuable discussion, but taking away the big Heatseeker Missile crits was a long time coming. As someone else said: Other specs lost the ability to crit that high (e.g lost the passives) a long time ago. The only one who still had it were arsenal mercenaries. It's completely reasonable that this goes away.

 

Utilities will be looked at in a later patch. All these people saying: "BIOWARE! YOU DON'T NERF WHAT NEEDS TO BE NERFED!" can cram it. One thing at a time. If they nerf utilities and damage at the same time, you people would be complaining about sledgehammer approaches.

 

We need a survive nerf not a DPS nerf.

 

When your range spec deals ~30% more burst than the next spec on BiS equipment, outperforms close to any other DPS without even as much as trying to, and is overrepresented in HM and NiM parses to a ridiculous degree, then yes, we need a DPS nerf. 40k Heatseeker Missile crits are unsustainable.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Alssaran

[DanNV]

In my opinion, this nerf is a bit to hard. I understand, that the merc dps has to be nerfed concerning the simpleness of rotation and energy management. But maybe think of just 50% of the actual planned numbers. That would also fit in my opinion.

 

Do you play the spec? I can say for a fact that almost 1/3 of the time the automatic stance doesn't actually work and you run out of ammo in less than 30 seconds running the rotation normally just keeps it at running out in just over 1 minute. If these !@&^$!@^%$ BW coders can't fix that, how do you expect them to ever get anywhere close to right on any sort of balance?

 

Go look at Parsely and look at the ranked stats and then tell me who is really OP. Hint, it isn't Commandos/Mercs.

[Misspentdolla]

Keith, Eric and the rest of the team.

 

Proposed changes for arsenal merc are plain out wrong. Problem with arsenal merc isn't damage output, it's survival it has in pvp. Really only change that should happen to mercs overall is heal on shield reduction to less stacks, or stack healing for less %

 

Something like 10 stacks down from 15, and heals for 3% down from 5%.

 

This change utterly guts and destroyed arsenal as a spec. If these changes go live, arsenal will compete with tanks and healers who heavily off dps. It will give them a proper run for their money, to be more specific.

 

I do not agree with the logic that it should be weak, because it's easy to play. You need easy specs for people who do not have time or invest time into learning something like IO(which btw needs a slight damage buff).

Although, harder specs should be more rewarding(and they are in difficulty of rotation, you derive more pleasure of playing IO as opposed to playing arsenal). However, this gap is humongous.

 

Out of proposed changes, increase to Blazing Bolts heat cost to 20 from 16 seems alright. Rest of it, however, does not.

 

This changes from opening post, should not go into action. Big population does not invest time or cares about learning more than one class/spec. And that is absolutely fine. Those people should not be put off from game.

[Zagzo]

Can you guys just slow down a bit? I get you're trying to bring things in line with the target dps but how about you just implement a few things at a time, especially with the history of overnerfs. Just do the 15% surge on heatseeker/whatever, 3 decoy charges, and 5% off blazing bolts and see what happens. This is a big deal for Master mode content, no reason to recklessly make an overperforming class unviable.

 

Edit: And don't change resource management. It's understandable if it was an expansion but there's no reason to change it, no matter how minor the change is.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Zagzo

[JargoFett]

90% or more of the complaints about Arsenal mercs and mercs in general were made from the PvP forums but this change specified above is a large PvE nerf. Blazing bolts and heatseeker being nerfed will be a major hit to all Arsenal mercs in PvE and knock it down almost I'd think to Lightning Sorceror level in PvE. However, PvP will be unchanged.

 

Mercs in PvP will still be able to face tank enemies and do tons of damage. Will people be getting global'd by a 3-series 30k heatseeker crit chain? nope, thanks to the heatseeker nerf but that merc will still live twice as long as you just cause he has 3 lives to your one.

 

Once again, the only people who will feel this nerf are number farmers in regs and PvE Arsenal mercs in MM content. (which isn't even relevant anymore anyways since they've removed any decent gear from MM )

[Alssaran]

90% or more of the complaints about Arsenal mercs and mercs in general were made from the PvP forums but this change specified above is a large PvE nerf.

 

That's because issues with classes are always more pronounced in PvP than in PvE due to the nature of the encounters.

 

In a PvE environment, there is no such thing as "overtuned." Yes, a class might be vastly outperforming others in terms of DPS, but hardly anyone who's playing at the level where it actually matters will notice and complain. DPS matters sh*t all for most story/veteran/master mode FP and story/veteran operations. It's only when we're going into the top brackets of master mode raiding that squeezing these last bits of DPS out of your class becomes really important. And people who play at that bracket are routinely used to switching specs and classes based on performance.

 

A little anecdotal evidence from Legion: It's not uncommon that top guilds have players and classes that only join for a single boss at a time. Some characters are specifically equipped and parket outside the instance to be used on only a few bosses. For example: You don't take someone without good AoE damage (assassination rogue) into an AoE heavy bossfight. You'll most likely switch your assassination rogues, which might have been useful during the last bossfight, for one or two marksmanship hunters to manage the heavy AoE burden.

 

A lot of text for a simple explanation: Complaints usually come from PvP areas because the nature of playing against other players makes these flaws more frustrating. People who play on high levels can (but don't necessarily have to or will) switch classes reasonably well, and PvE is about a group of players fighting against a single computer enemy. That enemy, unsurprisingly, will rarely complain about DPS or survivability of his enemies. However, these things become tremendously important in PvP scenarios.

 

Saying that mercenaries don't need a DPS adjustments because complaints were mainly from a PvP side of things, and thus the only thing that needs to change is survivability, is completely ignoring the gigabytes of combat data that are available as parses. The combat design philosophy posted in these forums is actually quite common among MMORPGs. Melee classes should always deal slightly more DPS than ranged classes, but their actual DPS is always off-set due to their lower uptime on the boss, which evens out on an average in the end. If a ranged burst class is vastly outperforming melee classes in every regard, like is the case with arsenal mercs right now, something in terms of DPS needs to change. Simply saying that "PvP people are complaining = DPS is fine = only adjust our survivability" is wrong. PvE adjustments are always made based on data collected from fights and from the database, and never due to player complaints. And in this case, mercenaries parse exceptionally well and are played a ton.

 

Blazing bolts and heatseeker being nerfed will be a major hit to all Arsenal mercs in PvE and knock it down almost I'd think to Lightning Sorceror level in PvE.

 

Which is precisely the point. Lightning Sorc and arsenal mercenary are supposed to perform roughly ~5% below target DPS, and thus be worse in a theoretical 100% uptime parse at a dummy. However, they will average out with melee DPS during bossfights because melees are disadvantaged due to lower uptimes of their DPS.

 

nope, thanks to the heatseeker nerf but that merc will still live twice as long as you just cause he has 3 lives to your one.

 

Which will be looked at during a later date. Damage first. Utilities later on. I love how many people comment on this post without even reading the material provided by Bioware, and just assume this is the only thing coming.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Alssaran

[DenariusJay]

That's because issues with classes are always more pronounced in PvP than in PvE due to the nature of the encounters.

 

In a PvE environment, there is no such thing as "overtuned." Yes, a class might be vastly outperforming others in terms of DPS, but hardly anyone who's playing at the level where it actually matters will notice and complain. DPS matters sh*t all for most story/veteran/master mode FP and story/veteran operations. It's only when we're going into the top brackets of master mode raiding that squeezing these last bits of DPS out of your class becomes really important. And people who play at that bracket are routinely used to switching specs and classes based on performance.

 

A little anecdotal evidence from Legion: It's not uncommon that top guilds have players and classes that only join for a single boss at a time. Some characters are specifically equipped and parket outside the instance to be used on only a few bosses. For example: You don't take someone without good AoE damage (assassination rogue) into an AoE heavy bossfight. You'll most likely switch your assassination rogues, which might have been useful during the last bossfight, for one or two marksmanship hunters to manage the heavy AoE burden.

 

A lot of text for a simple explanation: Complaints usually come from PvP areas because the nature of playing against other players makes these flaws more frustrating. People who play on high levels can (but don't necessarily have to or will) switch classes reasonably well, and PvE is about a group of players fighting against a single computer enemy. That enemy, unsurprisingly, will rarely complain about DPS or survivability of his enemies. However, these things become tremendously important in PvP scenarios.

 

Saying that mercenaries don't need a DPS adjustments because complaints were mainly from a PvP side of things, and thus the only thing that needs to change is survivability, is completely ignoring the gigabytes of combat data that are available as parses. The combat design philosophy posted in these forums is actually quite common among MMORPGs. Melee classes should always deal slightly more DPS than ranged classes, but their actual DPS is always off-set due to their lower uptime on the boss, which evens out on an average in the end. If a ranged burst class is vastly outperforming melee classes in every regard, like is the case with arsenal mercs right now, something in terms of DPS needs to change. Simply saying that "PvP people are complaining = DPS is fine = only adjust our survivability" is wrong. PvE adjustments are always made based on data collected from fights and from the database, and never due to player complaints. And in this case, mercenaries parse exceptionally well and are played a ton.

.

 

This.

 

Merc's damage has been out performing a lot of specs for awhile now. It's been over-performing for so long now that people just started thinking that's how it was suppose to be. The big crits were so overtuned but because of BW's slow approach to balance people just started to assume that's how the class is suppose to be. The sustained dps from blazing bolts was so good that we just started to assume that's how it is. Awesome sustained, little resource management, incredible burst, easy rotation management, hey, that's just how this class is suppose to be, right? Broke for so long it become "right".

 

This is why balance changes have to start happening faster. Waiting so long starts to convince players that the OPness is by design, and they start to accept that's how its suppose to be. Bioware needs to address this crap faster it will save players a lot of grief. Arsenal has been murdering Tk and marksman in PvE environment for so long that we all started to think it was suppose to be this way by design.

 

People that are saying "DPS was not the problem, its the DCDS!" are only half right. The DPS has been a problem for along time now, even during 4.0 era arsenal was exceptionally strong in DPS compared to its counter parts (marksman, lightning), its just been over performing for so long we started to assume that Merc is suppose to be this way when it really never was. People that are crying "Oh NO, this puts us at marksman and lightning DPs, holy crap what a huge nerf!!!" no, this is where you were supposed to be. I still blame BW for waiting so damn long to finally correct it.

 

These changes they are proposing now should've happened in 5.0. Mercs dps reduced, survivability increased - it would have saved us a lot of grief instead of waiting 8 months later to and say "oh hai guys, arsenal dps has been op for over a year we gone fix now k"

Edited June 17, 2017 by DenariusJay

[Tadagyt]

We've been here before... they post their "class balance", we tell them they are wrong... and many "experts" come here to tell us Bioware is right and that things will be fine.

Changes go live, and we end up being right.

 

How can you say it's fair for arsenal to be WORSE than lightning sorcs in the next patch? Not even lightning sorcs should be in that situation.

[VIZIOO]

Keith, Eric and the rest of the team.

 

Proposed changes for arsenal merc are plain out wrong. Problem with arsenal merc isn't damage output, it's survival it has in pvp. Really only change that should happen to mercs overall is heal on shield reduction to less stacks, or stack healing for less %

 

Something like 10 stacks down from 15, and heals for 3% down from 5%.

 

This change utterly guts and destroyed arsenal as a spec. If these changes go live, arsenal will compete with tanks and healers who heavily off dps. It will give them a proper run for their money, to be more specific.

 

I do not agree with the logic that it should be weak, because it's easy to play. You need easy specs for people who do not have time or invest time into learning something like IO(which btw needs a slight damage buff).

Although, harder specs should be more rewarding(and they are in difficulty of rotation, you derive more pleasure of playing IO as opposed to playing arsenal). However, this gap is humongous.

 

Out of proposed changes, increase to Blazing Bolts heat cost to 20 from 16 seems alright. Rest of it, however, does not.

 

This changes from opening post, should not go into action. Big population does not invest time or cares about learning more than one class/spec. And that is absolutely fine. Those people should not be put off from game.

 

Totally agree! soon we won't be able to use the Class even in PvE.

 

 

Can you guys just slow down a bit? I get you're trying to bring things in line with the target dps but how about you just implement a few things at a time, especially with the history of overnerfs. Just do the 15% surge on heatseeker/whatever, 3 decoy charges, and 5% off blazing bolts and see what happens. This is a big deal for Master mode content, no reason to recklessly make an overperforming class unviable.

 

Edit: And don't change resource management. It's understandable if it was an expansion but there's no reason to change it, no matter how minor the change is.

 

Ppl start nerfting campaigns without realizing the severe consequences. Now the class is getting ready not to be viable even in PvE. Oh Boy! Good thing I got my Raven title before July13, since those kinds of operations require Heavy Rdps.

 

Like the old proverb says " forgive them, for they know not what they do" amen to that

[FerkWork]

This.

 

Merc's damage has been out performing a lot of specs for awhile now. It's been over-performing for so long now that people just started thinking that's how it was suppose to be. The big crits were so overtuned but because of BW's slow approach to balance people just started to assume that's how the class is suppose to be. The sustained dps from blazing bolts was so good that we just started to assume that's how it is. Awesome sustained, little resource management, incredible burst, easy rotation management, hey, that's just how this class is suppose to be, right? Broke for so long it become "right".

 

This is why balance changes have to start happening faster. Waiting so long starts to convince players that the OPness is by design, and they start to accept that's how its suppose to be. Bioware needs to address this crap faster it will save players a lot of grief. Arsenal has been murdering Tk and marksman in PvE environment for so long that we all started to think it was suppose to be this way by design.

 

People that are saying "DPS was not the problem, its the DCDS!" are only half right. The DPS has been a problem for along time now, even during 4.0 era arsenal was exceptionally strong in DPS compared to its counter parts (marksman, lightning), its just been over performing for so long we started to assume that Merc is suppose to be this way when it really never was. People that are crying "Oh NO, this puts us at marksman and lightning DPs, holy crap what a huge nerf!!!" no, this is where you were supposed to be. I still blame BW for waiting so damn long to finally correct it.

 

These changes they are proposing now should've happened in 5.0. Mercs dps reduced, survivability increased - it would have saved us a lot of grief instead of waiting 8 months later to and say "oh hai guys, arsenal dps has been op for over a year we gone fix now k"

 

Except that this does nothing to address specs like Lightning. And more disturbing it signals BW doesn't care that those specs sit where they are at rock bottom and prefers that these specs be there.

Edited June 17, 2017 by FerkWork

[scardera]

release tier 4 gears complain DPS is ''not on target''...bioware level of cringe....

 

so you want us to do ''230 gears'' Dps after grinding for 248 gears? insanity

Edited June 17, 2017 by scardera

[GloomyBoy]

The intended target is completely reasonable when you consider how ranged DPS like arsenal mercenaries have a higher uptime on DPS than any melee class. It seems people take dummy parses way too seriously for their own good. A "best case" dummy parse is not the actual raid DPS. They almost never take into account that range and melee DPS have different damage uptimes due to mechanic evasion and the limited range of melee attacks.

 

Whether the heat management of Blazing Bolts needs to be adjustet is a valuable discussion, but taking away the big Heatseeker Missile crits was a long time coming. As someone else said: Other specs lost the ability to crit that high (e.g lost the passives) a long time ago. The only one who still had it were arsenal mercenaries. It's completely reasonable that this goes away.

 

Utilities will be looked at in a later patch. All these people saying: "BIOWARE! YOU DON'T NERF WHAT NEEDS TO BE NERFED!" can cram it. One thing at a time. If they nerf utilities and damage at the same time, you people would be complaining about sledgehammer approaches.

 

 

 

When your range spec deals ~30% more burst than the next spec on BiS equipment, outperforms close to any other DPS without even as much as trying to, and is overrepresented in HM and NiM parses to a ridiculous degree, then yes, we need a DPS nerf. 40k Heatseeker Missile crits are unsustainable.

 

As i can see, this guy is the only guy with a head on his shoulders.

All that he said is 100% true. So stop whining about DPS being ok as it was outperforming all the other classes in PVP. As a range nonetheless LOL. Be grateful they didn't go even more % down.

Also i hope they nerf those stupid DCDs as well.