Inquiry to developers- Open Question regarding class changes

[Racit]

The purpose of this post is simple. As th is batch of developers appear to be more transparent, would you please touch on the following questions. In many of the recent post there are many player questions going unanswered.

 

-How was a spread of +/- 5% dps output decided? Many feel that in 5.0 melee no longer require the above differential as gap closers are now commonplace and uptime has increased.

 

-What was the deciding factors of what specs would be addressed in 5.3 rather than 5.4? More specifically, we have been given the details of both a buff and (if initial estimates are correct, a bottom of the pile nerf). Why not handle all nerfs one patch and all buffs in the other? How will the current path not result in the king of imbalance during the 5.3-5.4 transition?

 

-In your explanation of how the balancing, the buzz words "target dps" was used with little detail of what this is. Could you expand? Is this on a parse dumy (which is replicated no where else in game), a pve aspect or pvp? The input here greatly effects the outcomes and we are curious as to what you actually mean.

 

If you could answer any or all of the above questions, it would go miles for the player base during this transition period.

 

Thank you!

Edited June 19, 2017 by Racit

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

 

-How was a spread of +/- 5% dps output decided? Many feel that in 5.0 melee no longer require the above differential as gap closers are now commonplace and uptime has increased.

 

-

 

 

I've seen exactly two people try to make this asinine contention so far.

 

It isn't an issue of getting on a target faster [which is what gap closers do] but it is still very much an uptime issue, wherein Ranged have notably higher uptime than melee.

 

There are many mechanics that cause melee to have to move away from the target [a raid boss for example] due to avoid damage [cleaves, aoes, missle blasts, circles of doom, etc.] and this distances involved will take melee out of their melee attack range, and thus they must stop DPSing for the duration. There are mechnics that force ranged to move as well but much less of the time does it effect ranged. Because the melee are forced to move out of attack range for duration of the effect, and ranged will not have to move and they can continue their normal rotations. Not only does the melee have the great downtimes and thus DPS loses, these downtimes cause rotation to get out of wack, so even once the melee get back on target they often have to realign thier rotations for optimal values [i.e. ramp up times, procs that fell off, energy/rage loss that needs to be rebuilt] thus to start over the rotation for a short time after they are back on target they will be doing sub-optimal damage until they have realigned their rotations, rebuilt the necessary resources the rotation needs, etc.

 

With regard to PVP the range to melee differential on uptime can be much worse, especially with all the slows, roots and stuns.

 

If a melee gets rooted or even slowed, a ranged opponent can plug away at the from safe distance while the melee is out of melee attack range, whereas a slowed or even rooted ranged player does not loss a second from thier damage.

 

Ranged are constantly plugging away at melee who are fighting other melee all the time, and it's not like an opponent is just gonna let you turn around and walk away without hitting you in the back if you tried or flat out prevent by use of an ability [slow, root, stun].

 

Gap closers have cool downs, there is some variation in duration, but just because you have one, doesn't necessarily mean it's available at any given time. Furthermore, gap closers have range requirements, it's not like you can just click on any target and you can get to them from any distance. Using Marauders/Juggs as an example, you have to be at least 10' away and no more than 30' away. You are not always going to be into those ranged perimeters for every possibly target. Mobility buffs can quickly take your target out of range.

 

Gap closer aren't even guaranteed when you are in the right distance values and you gap closer is not on CD. Snipers have a range of 35', so they can shoot you and you can't leap to them necessarily because they are outside of the range requirements, and that's even on if you are a Fury Mara. You can't even use a gap closer on a sniper at any distance, and mercs have two nets that prevent you from using not only a gap closer but certain other movement abilities as well [phasewalk for example]

 

Furthermore, you cannot use gap closers [or most of them any rate] if you are rooted.

 

That ranged doesn't have notably more uptime than melee is not only false, but it is a see through attempt for ranged to have further dominance over melee now that time time of reckoning has come for Mercs and Snipers OP as they are. in PVP ranged rule the roost and have great advantages over melee in that regard. This applies both in PVE and PVP, but it is a more significant issue in PVP.

 

But the contention that ranged doesn't have better uptime in raids is utter BS. It's not always the case on every boss, but some bosses the ranged to melee uptime differences glaringly apparent [sparky, Bulo, Sword Squadron, Underlurker, Gharj, Malaphar [that's a big one] Master/Blaster [an even bigger one] to name a few.

 

This is as true as it ever was.

[Eloi_BG]

Totally agree with the 5% gap (10% if you count biggest gap). This is too big, and especially in PVE, it is a problem.

 

As for the 5.3 vs 5.4 changes, from what I understand they think 5.3 will pretty much deal with all the damage problems. Don't need to buff lightning if arsenal and MM suck as much, IO/Viru/Sabo are nerfed also and you give sorc a better sustained (madness buff). From what I understand 5.3 will fix nearly everything they have in their "How class balance works" thread. The only unresolved issue I can think of is Fury/Concetration isn't over Carnage/Combat, and maybe the fact Vigilance is still behind other melee sustained, but it's not as far behing as Pyro and Hatred are (and most likely won't be anymore).

[Dewlmenow]

Let's talk about PVE balance, so let's look at the data of thousands of hm operations fights logged on starparse. Ideally every class would be close to the same numbers, because balance should try to make things either equal or close to equal as possible right? I personally feel that the upper percentiles are the most important because that shows what a class is capable of with few if any mistakes, so let's focus on the upper couple of percentiles of each class here . I see that melee are in general better off than ranged in boss fights. Vanguard and sage are in need of buffs, and it looks like commandos could use a slight buff if anything. I personally see no argument that melee are disadvantaged enough to deserve any dps gap over ranged let alone one as hefty as 5%. Edited June 20, 2017 by Dewlmenow

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

Let's talk about PVE balance, so let's look at the data of thousands of hm operations fights logged on starparse. Ideally every class would be close to the same numbers, because balance should try to make things either equal or close to equal as possible right? I personally feel that the upper percentiles are the most important because that shows what a class is capable of with few if any mistakes, so let's focus on the upper couple of percentiles of each class here . I see that melee are in general better off than ranged in boss fights. Vanguard and sage are in need of buffs, and it looks like commandos could use a slight buff if anything. I personally see no argument that melee are disadvantaged enough to deserve any dps gap over ranged let alone one as hefty as 5%.

 

I'm really not sure how this could even be in question.

 

Malaphar [ToS] Force melee out of melee range on multiple occassions once they get enough stacks while in the red circle and they have to stay outside and outside of melee ranged to a sufficient enough of the stacks drop off. This can occur 4 or 5 times. Ranged don't lose 1 second of UPtime. Melee will lose 5-50 seconds or so of uptime. Right there you have ranged with significantly more uptime than melee. And if the melee gets the spear toss circle he has to to run it to the adds, which is more downtime which he can't DPS. If a ranged get's the spear toss circle, he can run it to adds and still DPS the boss while he is running to the adds.

 

This is an irrefutable difference between melee and ranged uptime in the ranged player's favor. The following is a link to a video of the fight that was made by Zorz guide on Dulfy.

 

 

The Master/Blaster fight in the same OP couldn't possibly be more melee unfriendly [hell if even forces Ranged to move sometimes, but not as much as melee]. Melee are forced to move and incur mandatory downtimes about 7000000 times. This is so blantantly obvious.

 

Ruugar and that friggen bird Pearl are constantly moving out of melee attack range. Sometimes Ruugar leaps so far that he so too far to leap to and you first have to get within gap closer range and this assumes the gap closer is not on cooldown.

 

Sparky many times through the fight leaps out of melee attack range and so often that if you leap to adds she may jump away again before your gap closer is off CD. Sparky can also leap further than a gap closers max distance.

 

And Bulo? Bulo is a nightmare for Melee. Ranged must move as well but when they are forced to move they are not forced to move out of attack range and melee are ALWAYS forced to move out of attack range [4'].

 

Ranged has an undeniable uptime advantage on melee and it isn't a small advantage it can be huge.These arguments about melee not having any difference in Uptime now compared to Ranged are so obviously self serving as to be dumbfounding in the attempt. Even Lightning spec has this advantage [unfortunately it's DPS is so low the advantage can't be made suffciently alike].

 

Ranged DPS attack range is 30'.

mDPS attack ranged is 4'.

And Sniper attack range is 35' [the only class that can literally hit anyone without them being able to hit them back, even every other ranged class].

 

If a mechanic makes it so that you cannot be within 5 feet-25 feet of the boss and forces players in those ranges to move of take a shytload of damage [or possibly even kill you straightout in NiM] and this effect lasts for 8 seconds. The second that melee reaches the 5' mark, he can no longer DPS for those 8 seconds, save for maybe a lightsaber throw [and even that will not be possible if they are at the 15'mark]and even that still is massive DPS loss because it's only 1 attack in 8 seconds.

 

This same exact mechanic, literally does not effect ranged in the slightest. They can DPS their full rotations for those 8 seconds that melee cannot.Now tell me, are you saying that in such an instance [and there are a ton of them] that the ranged DPS is not having an uptime advantage over melee? How are melee attacking at those ranges? How are the ranged unable to still attack at those ranges?

 

If a Sniper is 35' away from a merc, he can attack the merc, but a mercs max range is 30' so if the Sniper is pegging him from 35' away, can the merc shoot back at him? Of course he can't hes 5' further away than his max range allows him to be able to attack.

 

Even if its just a 2 or 3 seconds difference, that's 3 seconds where a Carnage Marauder can't do a VT>Ravage>Devistating Blast Ferocity window with which he could have 60k or more damage. That's a 60k damage loss. So while Maraboy is losing this 60k of damage he could have done had he not been forced out of attack range, Mr Merc has used that same time to do a 40k Heatseeker followed by his normal subsequent rotation.

 

There's no difference there?

 

30-4= 26 [i used a calculator cuz i suck at math so this figure is correct =p] That's 26' more that a Merc or other rDPS can move around in and still be able to attack in where a Melee DPS cannot.

 

= Ranged uptime Advantage over melee.

 

P.S. That you have suggested that Mercs are deserving of a damage buff boggles the mind and shows the overall viewpoint as nothing other than a self serving agenda.

Edited June 20, 2017 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[Dewlmenow]

I'm really not sure how this could even be in question.

 

Malaphar [ToS] Force melee out of melee range on multiple occassions once they get enough stacks while in the red circle and they have to stay outside and outside of melee ranged to a sufficient enough of the stacks drop off. This can occur 4 or 5 times. Ranged don't lose 1 second of UPtime. Melee will lose 5-50 seconds or so of uptime. Right there you have ranged with significantly more uptime than melee. And if the melee gets the spear toss circle he has to to run it to the adds, which is more downtime which he can't DPS. If a ranged get's the spear toss circle, he can run it to adds and still DPS the boss while he is running to the adds.

 

This is an irrefutable difference between melee and ranged uptime in the ranged player's favor. The following is a link to a video of the fight that was made by Zorz guide on Dulfy.

 

 

The Master/Blaster fight in the same OP couldn't possibly be more melee unfriendly [hell if even forces Ranged to move sometimes, but not as much as melee]. Melee are forced to move and incur mandatory downtimes about 7000000 times. This is so blantantly obvious.

 

Ruugar and that friggen bird Pearl are constantly moving out of melee attack range. Sometimes Ruugar leaps so far that he so too far to leap to and you first have to get within gap closer range and this assumes the gap closer is not on cooldown.

 

Sparky many times through the fight leaps out of melee attack range and so often that if you leap to adds she may jump away again before your gap closer is off CD. Sparky can also leap further than a gap closers max distance.

 

And Bulo? Bulo is a nightmare for Melee. Ranged must move as well but when they are forced to move they are not forced to move out of attack range and melee are ALWAYS forced to move out of attack range [4'].

 

Ranged has an undeniable uptime advantage on melee and it isn't a small advantage it can be huge.These arguments about melee not having any difference in Uptime now compared to Ranged are so obviously self serving as to be dumbfounding in the attempt. Even Lightning spec has this advantage [unfortunately it's DPS is so low the advantage can't be made suffciently alike].

 

Ranged DPS attack range is 30'.

mDPS attack ranged is 4'.

And Sniper attack range is 35' [the only class that can literally hit anyone without them being able to hit them back, even every other ranged class].

 

If a mechanic makes it so that you cannot be within 5 feet-25 feet of the boss and forces players in those ranges to move of take a shytload of damage [or possibly even kill you straightout in NiM] and this effect lasts for 8 seconds. The second that melee reaches the 5' mark, he can no longer DPS for those 8 seconds, save for maybe a lightsaber throw [and even that will not be possible if they are at the 15'mark]and even that still is massive DPS loss because it's only 1 attack in 8 seconds.

 

This same exact mechanic, literally does not effect ranged in the slightest. They can DPS their full rotations for those 8 seconds that melee cannot.Now tell me, are you saying that in such an instance [and there are a ton of them] that the ranged DPS is not having an uptime advantage over melee? How are melee attacking at those ranges? How are the ranged unable to still attack at those ranges?

 

If a Sniper is 35' away from a merc, he can attack the merc, but a mercs max range is 30' so if the Sniper is pegging him from 35' away, can the merc shoot back at him? Of course he can't hes 5' further away than his max range allows him to be able to attack.

 

Even if its just a 2 or 3 seconds difference, that's 3 seconds where a Carnage Marauder can't do a VT>Ravage>Devistating Blast Ferocity window with which he could have 60k or more damage. That's a 60k damage loss. So while Maraboy is losing this 60k of damage he could have done had he not been forced out of attack range, Mr Merc has used that same time to do a 40k Heatseeker followed by his normal subsequent rotation.

 

There's no difference there?

 

30-4= 26 [i used a calculator cuz i suck at math so this figure is correct =p] That's 26' more that a Merc or other rDPS can move around in and still be able to attack in where a Melee DPS cannot.

 

= Ranged uptime Advantage over melee.

 

P.S. That you have suggested that Mercs are deserving of a damage buff boggles the mind and shows the overall viewpoint as nothing other than a self serving agenda.

 

All that rant does is show me that you didn't look at the link I posted which gives 99, 95, 75, 50, and 25 percentiles for thousands of each advanced class' actual dps on 8man hm fights, and if you want you can go to specific fights. I'm not going to disprove your comments about specific fights because you are right in that there are anti melee mechanics (although most of the ones you listed can be minimized by a raid group that knows what they are doing) except to say that if you look at the 99th percentile of each fight in this quoted comment, there are always at least 2 melee advanced class above the top ranged advanced class, so you are blowing melee's disadvantage way out of the water. There are even fights like master blaster where melee get to pretty much treat the boss as a parsing dummy, while ranged have a much more difficult job. I recommend you actually look at the data listed before calling somebody out for having an agenda.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Dewlmenow

[teclado]

I've seen exactly two people try to make this asinine contention so far.

Well I must be the other one, because I said basically the same thing.

 

Melee dps don't have any channeled (can be interrupted) abilities now. Ravage is now instant for a reason. In PvP, melee can LoS or just flat out interrupt a ranged spec's channel. Melee get a short cooldown on interrupt. It's shift-5 on all my toons for a reason. I'm constantly interrupting ranged channels, when possible. Then there is also channeled ability pushback. It's a fine balance, for sure.

 

If we're talking PvE, I'm sure you know there are mechanics that require you to be inside a bubble (melee range) in order to do any damage. So that's clearly a mechanic designed to lean in favor of melee. I would agree that melee seems overall slightly disadvantaged in operations. But is that disadvantage worth up to a 10% damage increase? I would say it is asinine to believe that percent is perfect, beyond question.

 

The point is that +/- 5% number should be evaluated. Certainly there is some advantage of melee / range, but how is it asinine to question exactly how much that advantage is worth in terms of sustained dps? It's not, not at all. It's a legitimate discussion.

 

As an obvious PvE example: Styrak burn. There is no advantage to being ranged vs melee here. So Anni Mara (in theory) should get a 10% dps advantage over Arsenl / Lightning / Marksman? Is that fair?

 

P.S. I'm a melee lover. I hate Snipers with a passion and I burn every Sorc I can find. Mercs...well, I do what I can against them right now.

Edited June 20, 2017 by teclado

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

Well I must be the other one, because I said basically the same thing.

 

Melee dps don't have any channeled (can be interrupted) abilities now. Ravage is now instant for a reason. In PvP, melee can LoS or just flat out interrupt a ranged spec's channel. Melee get a short cooldown on interrupt. It's shift-5 on all my toons for a reason. I'm constantly interrupting ranged channels, when possible. Then there is also channeled ability pushback. It's a fine balance, for sure.

 

If we're talking PvE, I'm sure you know there are mechanics that require you to be inside a bubble (melee range) in order to do any damage. So that's clearly a mechanic designed to lean in favor of melee. I would agree that melee seems overall slightly disadvantaged in operations. But is that disadvantage worth up to a 10% damage increase? I would say it is asinine to believe that percent is perfect, beyond question.

 

The point is that +/- 5% number should be evaluated. Certainly there is some advantage of melee / range, but how is it asinine to question exactly how much that advantage is worth in terms of sustained dps? It's not, not at all. It's a legitimate discussion.

 

As an obvious PvE example: Styrak burn. There is no advantage to being ranged vs melee here. So Anni Mara (in theory) should get a 10% dps advantage over Arsenl / Lightning / Marksman? Is that fair?

 

P.S. I'm a melee lover. I hate Snipers with a passion and I burn every Sorc I can find. Mercs...well, I do what I can against them right now.

 

I was a progression raider right up until 5.0, when they took gear out of OPs both my raid teams went belly up and so I spend more time now in PVP than in PVE. But Raiding is and will always be my first love, so I really do understand both sides of this.

 

It isn't about channels, because as you pointed out ravage is instant now. But channeled, instant or not, I still can't DPS Bulo when I must move and continue to move until Mass Barrage sequence ends, I have stop DPSing him Volley wont let me get close enough to him. I must back off when Load lifters become a danger. None of these things have anything to do with channel or not. They have to do with forced downtime.

 

Now, I ask you, can a merc still shoot at Bulo during Mass Barrage? Does where the volley is have any baring on the mercs or lightning sorcs attack range? Do load lifters force Mercs to stop shooting at Bulo? Should a Melee not move if Shotgun Blast and Scatter Blaster or Exonium Carts will hit him ? Can I control which way the Tank chooses to turn him?

 

Are these mechanics not reapting themselves over and over again through out the entire fight? Mass Barrage happens every 60 seconds. If the fight goes 5 minutes lets say, than melee will be forced to leave melee attack range 5 times throughout the fight to avoid taking damage from that mechanic is that not insuring that a melee will lose at least 30 seconds of uptime to that one mechanic alone?

 

Using your example: Styrak burn. There is no advantage to being ranged vs melee here. So Anni Mara (in theory) should get a 10% dps advantage over Arsenl / Lightning / Marksman? Is that fair?

 

When the Kell Dragon is out, Ranged have much less to worry about the spit, melee are always effected by this, ranged are not. Ranged will tend to take less damage than melee will. It's also a lot easier for a ranged to move behind the Tank during the Spines whirling attack and be in attack range than melee, melee has to work with how the tank is situated and trying to be in range [4] but behind tank isn't an exact science so youll loss a second of two feeling that out. As you will need to fight the Kell Dragon twice, dealing with the spit issue takes on even more times that will force movement to avoid damage. Ranged doesn't even need to consider the spit, it's not going to slow their DPS for one second, they do not need to look for safe places to stand and be in attack range.

 

During Lighting Manifestation one person needs to be in melee ranged or they will do damage to the rest of the raid group in the middle. Usually this will be a melee combatant. Once again, ranged can just stand in the middle and pew pew away and switch targets without needing to have a gap closer off CD to move to another one that may still be standing after a melee has downed his.

 

When Styrak uses Saber Throw/Force Charge can very easily throw a melee outside of attack range, this is much less likely to be the case for a ranged DPSer so, your example isn't entirely correct.

 

Furthermore, not all the fights are the same, not all the mechanics exist in every fight and there are some raid bosses that are melee friendly, but those that are melee friendly, are the exception not the rule.

 

I believe the examples I sited in my previous post where I addressed quite a few different bosses which so clearly effect a Melee DPSers uptime notably more than a Ranged DPSer.

 

Furthermore, PVE and PVP are two totally seperate beasts, I think most would agree on that point. Even if you totally discounted the many instances in Raiding that are not melee unfriendly and said they were all even between Melee and Ranged in terms of uptime, that would still not change the circumstances in PVP wherein ranged has such a disproportionate advantage over melee.

 

It's unfortunate that when considering one of those two areas of play anything you do to it will effect the area of play [PVE-PVP]. Clearly there is a difference in some areas of performance between the two. [in PVE you are never going to be in a group without a healer, in PVP half the time you will not have a healer on your team.]

 

I do not think the DPS nerf to Mercs is warranted to this degree and i am a self avowed Merc/Sniper hater [as well =p]. The loss of Targeting effecting the 'surge' bonus on critcal is justified, it should have happened back in 4.0 when everyone one else lost it. The rest of the DPS nerf I do not find appropriate. They just should have dealt with their obscene DCDs. [These DCDs do effect PVE as well].

 

The exact percentages of difference aside, I'm not saying what percentage is appropriate, I'm not a mathmatician, what I am saying is, Melee should have higher DPS than Ranged due to Ranges very real greater uptime than melee. Whether that be 5% or 10% I make no comment on, simply that there should be greater DPS for melee [even if that was 4% difference].

 

Let's also not pretend that there are not differences in the level of skill needed to do well with different classes and that they are all equally as easy as Arsenal. Arsenal is faceroll easy. Try comparing the differences in skill needed for equal levels of performance between Arsenal and Annihilation or Carnage or Deception. They're not all the same. Even between mercs and Snipers the level of ease are different. A mistake made using Arsenal does not have the same effects on DPS as one made with IO or Carnage.

 

You are entitled to you're opinion, but it is one that I adamantly do not share. And respectfully, I don't think many do.

[teclado]

Yep, so I think we actually agree quite a bit. I just get caught up in numbers (actual %). But I certainly agree that melee should always do more damage than ranged, I'm just wondering if the current target is well placed.

 

When Racit said:

-How was a spread of +/- 5% dps output decided? Many feel that in 5.0 melee no longer require the above differential as gap closers are now commonplace and uptime has increased.

I interpreted that to mean "perhaps the +/-5% numbers should be tweaked." I don't think he meant to say that there should be no difference (maybe I'm wrong).

 

Communication is not my strong suit, but I'm trying.

[Racit]

Yep, so I think we actually agree quite a bit. I just get caught up in numbers (actual %). But I certainly agree that melee should always do more damage than ranged, I'm just wondering if the current target is well placed.

 

When Racit said:

 

I interpreted that to mean "perhaps the +/-5% numbers should be tweaked." I don't think he meant to say that there should be no difference (maybe I'm wrong).

 

Communication is not my strong suit, but I'm trying.

 

You understood me correctly. I believe the entirety of my post was a simple question if clarification could be given on the various questions that players seem to have. A plus minus 5% (10% total) seems high to me (currently NiM raider and avid pvp player).

 

This question and all others were asked as general questions to allow the developers the ability to answer at whatever level they wanted to if they actually replied.

[Eloi_BG]

The Master/Blaster fight in the same OP couldn't possibly be more melee unfriendly [hell if even forces Ranged to move sometimes, but not as much as melee]. Melee are forced to move and incur mandatory downtimes about 7000000 times. This is so blantantly obvious.

To be honest I stopped reading there. If your melee have less uptime than your range on master blaster you're doing it wrong. Did the fights (HM) with three melee and they didn't have to move at all of phase 1, a bit to swap on master and rain of pain in phase 2, and not at all in phase 3. 1 range DPS and 1 healer were moving, having (sometimes) to interrupt or (slightly) delay casts.

 

As for other fights, there are some where you lose a few GCD (malaphar, weird Tyrans leaping around, revan cleanses), as for the range there are a few fights where you might need to interrupt casts (walkers red circle, tyrans moving around, well basically moving out of stuff in general, you can't always plan your rotation accordingly). Most fights (if not all) accommodate having 2 melee DPS very well.

 

Anyway, I agree range have it easier (more beginner friendly), but when it comes to beating tight DPS checks in hard content, then all the DPS shouldn't really lose many GCDs, so the 5% difference is excessive. In a general fight (like around 5 mins), there are around 230 GCDs (counting it as 1.3 seconds cause alacrity is so high nowadays). 5% is 11.5 GCDs, which is IMO way more than what melee DPS loses vs range in the fight (especially compared to the fact range can also lose a few due to casts). In more than half the fights melee aren't even at a disadvantage. Please reconsider #makeit3not5 (3 is kinda random, but seems good to me).

[Gyronamics]

I'm really not sure how this could even be in question.

 

Good thing you asked, some people don't understand how to get melee in a fight and not get penalised.

 

Preferential positioning and targeting for melee is how it's done in organised teams.

 

In a nutshell you give the melee the easiest role, something along the lines of staring into the backside of the boss for the entire fight.

 

Meanwhile ranged covers the less preferable targets.

 

If I just pick an example at random... someone mentioned Master and Blaster...

 

Master and Blaster the melee has several spots around Blaster where they can stand without interfering with each others bomb circles. They never move for the fight except when the entire raid has to move and no one has a target. Then at the end both bosses are at melee range.

 

For the same reason there is often a practical melee limit as there has to be enough ranged to cover less desirable targets and let the melee tunnel the boss or in some fights, mechanics which become increasingly horrible if you overstack melee. This becomes especially obvious in 16m modes.

 

For example Master and Blaster has a practical limit of how many melee can stand around Blaster without having to get creative with the bomb mechanics.

 

In other words a raid can be organised so that the melee never or rarely has to deal with the melee penalties. This is how it is done by organised raiders.

[RACATW]

My friend who did NiM said ranged are always preferred, especially snipers.

 

Tab target with massive FoV and sitting in one spot makes it easy.

Edited June 22, 2017 by RACATW

[matthobbit]

The purpose of this post is simple. As th is batch of developers appear to be more transparent, would you please touch on the following questions. In many of the recent post there are many player questions going unanswered.

 

-How was a spread of +/- 5% dps output decided? Many feel that in 5.0 melee no longer require the above differential as gap closers are now commonplace and uptime has increased.

 

-What was the deciding factors of what specs would be addressed in 5.3 rather than 5.4? More specifically, we have been given the details of both a buff and (if initial estimates are correct, a bottom of the pile nerf). Why not handle all nerfs one patch and all buffs in the other? How will the current path not result in the king of imbalance during the 5.3-5.4 transition?

 

-In your explanation of how the balancing, the buzz words "target dps" was used with little detail of what this is. Could you expand? Is this on a parse dumy (which is replicated no where else in game), a pve aspect or pvp? The input here greatly effects the outcomes and we are curious as to what you actually mean.

 

If you could answer any or all of the above questions, it would go miles for the player base during this transition period.

 

Thank you!

 

I think this thread got hijacked by people who wanted to argue about melee vs. range DPS mechanics. Bringing it back to the OP's question - I would also like to know why the spread is +-5%. A 10% dps difference in a ops group can make a massive difference against bosses with tight DPS checks. It... feels unreasonable to force a dps to switch out of their favorite spec just because avoiding an enrage is mechanically impossible.

 

Why not a 5% spread? 7%? 3%? Is it because 10% is a nice round number? What's the method behind the number?

[teclado]

I think this thread got hijacked by people who wanted to argue about melee vs. range DPS mechanics. Bringing it back to the OP's question - I would also like to know why the spread is +-5%. A 10% dps difference in a ops group can make a massive difference against bosses with tight DPS checks. It... feels unreasonable to force a dps to switch out of their favorite spec just because avoiding an enrage is mechanically impossible.

 

Why not a 5% spread? 7%? 3%? Is it because 10% is a nice round number? What's the method behind the number?

Well, it's all related. Quite intertwined. Melee vs range DPS mechanics are the reason why the devs are intentionally aiming for that +/-5% difference. So the first question is: is it necessary to have any % difference target at all for melee vs ranged and sustained vs burst? In other words, is there an inherent advantage to being ranged vs melee or burst vs DoT? I think we all agree the answer to that is absolutely, yes. Then the second question is: how much?

 

The 10% swing seems extreme IMO, which makes some specs flat out non-viable in certain situations, or at least significantly more challenging, and therefore not viable for some people. Certainly there is a point where it's too much, and a point where it's not enough. Finding the sweet spot is the trick. In all of the class changes threads, there is little discussion going on about this specific topic. It's mostly just people saying that the damage was "fine," which of course is not a quantitative answer. They should be talking about the +/-5% numbers.

Edited June 23, 2017 by teclado

[Gyronamics]

They should be talking about the +/-5% numbers.

 

The circumstances of obtaining +/- 5% are not being shown with any clarity which is at least one reason why I don't agree with the reasoning for the changes to dps.

[BraverDre]

I like the new changes they are going to make. I hope classes will be balanced and there will be no OP classes that everybody woild like to reroll to. Edited June 25, 2017 by BraverDre

[Gyronamics]

I like the new changes they are going to make. I hope classes will be balanced and there will be no OP classes that everybody woild like to reroll to.

 

Melee will have an enforced damage advantage.

 

That means whenever it is easy to stay on target it is deliberately unbalanced in terms of dps in favour of melee.

 

The developers want to believe that melee has enough downtime to penalise that.

 

On the other hand someone has been loading gapclosers, dashes, speed boosts and immunities onto melee which fix such issues of downtime. Some are baseline, some are utilities. Most can be found on a marauder. It has never been easier to sustain uptime on any melee.

 

Such things are in addition to traditional melee-in-PVE tactics of getting the melee to stand on the boss all fight and never have downtime.

 

No, it will not be balanced. But making changes is easier than making content and this is designed to damage the use of ranged.

 

Better controls, interrupts and fully instant attacks on melee usually mean ranged doesn't benefit from a close range fight in PVP anyway. Such fights will become worse for ranged.

 

There are exceptions to many things but we will get a blanket dps advantage to melee because the developers want it to be so and there will be specs and entire classes that lose out heavily in how acceptable they are for PVE content and pvp.

 

So again, there will not be a balance, just a change.

Edited June 26, 2017 by Gyronamics

[scottsaxman]

Perhaps I missed it... (hint, hint, discussion of melee vs. ranged notwithstanding)

 

Does anyone have any clear indication of what target DPS the developers are actually aiming for? The baseline number, not +/- 5 or 10%...

Edited June 26, 2017 by scottsaxman

[Eloi_BG]

Does anyone have any clear indication of what target DPS the developers are actually aiming for? The baseline number, not +/- 5 or 10%...

 

They didn't say the number, but we can extrapolate. Looking at specs that are currently ok (not being changed in 5.3) and that are supposed to be at baseline number, we have Carnage, AP, Rage, Deception and Concealment. Taking a look at top parses on parsely (1st and 10th):

- Carnage 10,56k - 10,11

- AP 10,14 - 9,81

- Rage 10,23 - 9,60

- Deception 10,54 - 10,29

- Conc 10,36 - 9,96

Carnage and deception are a bit high, but since I think there is a small nerf coming to carnage and a buff coming to fury in order to be coherent with their Class balance post and since deception has a very annoying positioning requirement (maul) I think that explains it. AP, rage and conc are in the same area, which is IMO the one they aim for.

Considering their baseline number is a 5 min fight (and these are more like 4 min), we can get those numbers down a bit. Also top parses contain lucky crits (that's why I also looked at 10th place) and gear might also not be equal. Considering all this, I guess their baseline number is somewhere in between 9,6k and 9,8k.

That would make bottom classes baseline 9,12k - 9,31k and top classes 10,08k - 10,29k.

 

This is of course all assumptions but they seem legit considering current numbers and what they said.

[AwkwardGinger]

When you look at things like swing certain specs at top dps all the time and thinking, "Oh, lets nerf the crap out of them" you probably know very little about those classes. Virulence is over performing, but it is certainly not overpowered. Any fight wit a huge amount of target switching virulence suffers greatly from. Arsenal in its current state is overpowered. As a ranged burst class it puts out more damage than most melee burst classes. I'm not even going to mention survivability. Operatives by far now are the "top dps spec" from a pure dps spec but many raid teams do not consider bringing operatives to apex bosses because ops are literally garbage for some of them. They possess some of the highest dps capability in the game but their ability to target swap is appalling. it takes a great player to make these classes work in those situations.

 

And that's the problem that people today are running into. You see specs like virulence, lethality, and carnage being too specs for many fights. But the truth is that these classes have much higher skill caps than others. There are maybe 12 players in this game who can play carnage at its maximum potential in pve. And that's being generous. Arsenal, on the other hand, has an incredibly low skill cap for the damage it can do.

 

I digress however. My point is that people are judging classes to be overpowered based on what the absolute top players in the game are capable of. These aren't people who are just talented gamers, but they put time and energy into mastering their classes. When a class is consistently performing beyond its expectation for the vast majority of players of that class, then it is in need of a nerf.

 

Playing a ranged class in both pvp and pve, as well as playing melee and clearing nearly all the content in the game, I will say this. There is not a single melee spec that is in need of a nerf. Most of them need buffs. The only ranged class that needs a substantial nerf is Arsenal. IO, Engi, and Virulence need slight nerfs. It not as hard as bioware is currently giving them, because if you look at fights that are dummy parse fights, like writhing horror, tyrans, dread guards to an extent, kephess the return of the meme, etc., then those specs will be overperforming, it's true. But a majority of fights in this game ranged sustained specs suffer greatly, and with the current way these changes are going, I'll have to play marksman on my sniper for more than 60% of fights because virulence and engi will simply be too garbage. The advantage of sustained classes in general is that they are great when they can just whack the boss, but when target switching or a heavy amount of movement becomes a factor, they fall much closer to what should be expected.

 

 

TLDR Don't judge the entire class based on what the top 1% of the top 1% are able to do. There are many more factors besides just "numbers" to consider when balancing a class. Such a show these classes work in real environments, not just on a dummy. All of these factors must be considered before balancing a class, which I'm almost certain is NOT what bioware is doing right now.

[Eloi_BG]

You see specs like virulence, lethality, and carnage being too specs for many fights. But the truth is that these classes have much higher skill caps than others. There are maybe 12 players in this game who can play carnage at its maximum potential in pve.

 

What? Viru and carnage hard? Lethality seemed to have a bit more subtleties when I tried it but can't really say, barely did it in a few ops for lols in healer gear.

 

But a majority of fights in this game ranged sustained specs suffer greatly, and with the current way these changes are going, I'll have to play marksman on my sniper for more than 60% of fights because virulence and engi will simply be too garbage.

 

What? 60%? You should read this http://dulfy.net/2016/12/24/swtor-5-0-virulence-sniper-pve-guide-by-veldix/, raiding part where Veldix says which spec is best in which fight. You should also look up multi-dotting.

 

Such a show these classes work in real environments, not just on a dummy. All of these factors must be considered before balancing a class, which I'm almost certain is NOT what bioware is doing right now.

 

Pretty sure they aren't just using dummy parses. Anyhow, like I mentioned many times, I don't agree with the 5% (too big) and I backed it up with a few calculations. My conclusions are pretty much the same as yours, Viru, Engi, IO only need a small nerf, and very small in the case of IO cause heat management doesn't give it as much potential as viru on multi target. Arsenal needed a bigger nerf, though from early calculations not as big (cause the 5% is too big). Bunch of melee classes and madness needed a good buff (also slight buff to lightning and MM to put it where I think arsenal should be).

 

TLDR: Your conclusion is valid, but everything else is isn't.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Eloi_BG

[AwkwardGinger]

What? Viru and carnage hard? Lethality seemed to have a bit more subtleties when I tried it but can't really say, barely did it in a few ops for lols in healer gear.

 

 

 

What? 60%? You should read this http://dulfy.net/2016/12/24/swtor-5-0-virulence-sniper-pve-guide-by-veldix/, raiding part where Veldix says which spec is best in which fight. You should also look up multi-dotting.

 

 

 

Pretty sure they aren't just using dummy parses. Anyhow, like I mentioned many times, I don't agree with the 5% (too big) and I backed it up with a few calculations. My conclusions are pretty much the same as yours, Viru, Engi, IO only need a small nerf, and very small in the case of IO cause heat management doesn't give it as much potential as viru on multi target. Arsenal needed a bigger nerf, though from early calculations not as big (cause the 5% is too big). Bunch of melee classes and madness needed a good buff (also slight buff to lightning and MM to put it where I think arsenal should be).

 

TLDR: Your conclusion is valid, but everything else is isn't.

 

Virulence is not the hardest spec, true, but to master it does require more work than many other specs in the game. As for Carnage, it's an easy spec to learn, but difficult to master in a raid environment. It has a very high skill cap, meaning that the maximum potential dps in a raid environment is harder to reach than with some other specs.

 

I've read veldix'a guide many times. Notice how I used the future tense in my verbs. I was talking about how after the patch MM will be better for many fights than Virulence is because virulence will be 100-200 dps above Marksman on a dummy, meaning on a variety of fights it will be significantly less viable than it is now. Virulence is justifiable on some fights now because of its vastly superior dps to marksman, but after these changes, if they occur as planned, that differential will end up with virulence being less dps than marksman on many fights.

 

I'm very familiar with multi-dotting. I've cleared almost all the PVE content in the game on my sniper. I'm not the absolute best, true, but I'm more than capable. My point with this is I do know what I'm talking about. On multi-dotting fights like warlords, or Dread guards, possibly writhing horror, virulence will be superior to marksman. But on fights where Virulence currently surpasses marksman and there are no targets to dotspread/multidot, it may be the case that Marksman wills surpass virulence after the patch drops.

 

I appreciate that you found something to agree with in my post rather than just writing the entire thing off.

[Cenati]

I have a question, coming from a very recently returned players (Newb) standpoint.

 

I don't pvp, so don't know the intricacies involved there. I've been busy leveling multiple characters to 70, and don't really have a developed preference at this point in time.

 

My question is in regards to burst vs sustained dps specializations. The original post mentioned I think a five minute span when determining burst/sustained. Are any of the operations bosses in operations, be it story or Hardmode, killed in under five minutes? And with these changes, are there actually real dps gains for a shorter fight by the so-called burst specs? Arsenal Merc was/is bursty, but held a fairly repeatable damage band on the parsers, i.e. there were spikes, but it was not a long term frontloaded damage that leveled off to a serious degree. Lethality Operative (at least for me) seems about the same, with a slight ramp up at the beginning, but a very sustained rate after that. I'm not familiar with the other specs that well, but for these two at least, I don't personally see a huge gain/loss for time of fight, again though, I am just getting back into the game.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

I have a question, coming from a very recently returned players (Newb) standpoint.

 

I don't pvp, so don't know the intricacies involved there. I've been busy leveling multiple characters to 70, and don't really have a developed preference at this point in time.

 

My question is in regards to burst vs sustained dps specializations. The original post mentioned I think a five minute span when determining burst/sustained. Are any of the operations bosses in operations, be it story or Hardmode, killed in under five minutes? And with these changes, are there actually real dps gains for a shorter fight by the so-called burst specs? Arsenal Merc was/is bursty, but held a fairly repeatable damage band on the parsers, i.e. there were spikes, but it was not a long term frontloaded damage that leveled off to a serious degree. Lethality Operative (at least for me) seems about the same, with a slight ramp up at the beginning, but a very sustained rate after that. I'm not familiar with the other specs that well, but for these two at least, I don't personally see a huge gain/loss for time of fight, again though, I am just getting back into the game.

 

 

In SWTOR the differences between Burst and Sustained/DoT specs are very minor and don't follow the 'traditional' mold. The following is an except from one of the premiere Theorycrafters and methodical analyzers whos work a majority of players base their current builds and design play on.

 

There is very little difference between Burst and Sustained in SWTOR. All of the DoT classes rely more on Big Hitting moves than they do DoTs and the Burst DPS have all been toned down to the point where most of their moves do same damage. The biggest difference between Burst and DoTs is not sustained damage, its ability to change targets quickly vs setup time. But there are very few fights that require a target to be killed in less than 10 GCDs which lets all of the DoT classes to stand equal to the Burst classes (and the DoT Application is already factored into the DPS for those classes).