Why ranged classes actually shouldn't have a lower DPS target than melee classes

[Shwarzchild]

Ah my tank is so sexy in that video. Edited July 2, 2017 by Shwarzchild

[Schwarzschilda]

Isaac come back!

[Alec_Fortescue]

I don't agree, melee gap-closing makes you lose comparable amount of dps with ranged classes having to do 1gcd channels. -_- Sorry, but playing ranged, compared to melee, makes me feel even more brainded.

 

You still have my utmost respect and I am jealous for your friends who let and take you as guardian dps into hardest group content.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Alec_Fortescue

[Chiters]

Oh my god, just no man.

 

The worst melee spec should hit 10% harder then the hardest hitting ranged spec. They all should also have better means of survival to counter the range gap and the focus people put on melee over ranged in PVP.

 

Ranged is for clickers who can't stay on targets. Melee is much harder work and therefore should be more rewarding to play in all content.

[Schwarzschilda]

I don't agree, melee gap-closing makes you lose comparable amount of dps with ranged classes having to do 1gcd channels. -_- Sorry, but playing ranged, compared to melee, makes me feel even more brainded.

 

You still have my utmost respect and I am jealous for your friends who let and take you as guardian dps into hardest group content.

 

I'm actually the highest DPS for my raid team when I play a Guardian/Juggernaut. For people who trash Guardian/Juggernauts as DPS, they haven't seen someone who really knows how to play the class. Some of the best DPS I know are Guardians.

 

I don't really understand where you're going with your statements. Why don't you agree? Do you play both melee and ranged at a high level? Please elaborate.

 

Oh my god, just no man.

 

The worst melee spec should hit 10% harder then the hardest hitting ranged spec. They all should also have better means of survival to counter the range gap and the focus people put on melee over ranged in PVP.

 

Ranged is for clickers who can't stay on targets. Melee is much harder work and therefore should be more rewarding to play in all content.

 

This is a very ignorant post. The game isn't only balanced around PVP. Even then, the DPS difference between classes is not the source of PVP imbalance. Mercs are so overpowered right now not because of the damage they put out, but the fact that they have 3 near heal to fulls. They don't die, and thus can put out more damage than most other classes, but not because of their sustained DPS output. I agree that melee should have better survivability than ranged classes, and the only ranged class that is particularly bad is Mercs. 1v1 against any other ranged class, a melee will win if they can manage to stay in attacking range, given equal skill.

 

As someone who plays a Merc regularly because my raid team is heavy with other people who play melee, I'm insulted that you assert that "ranged is clickers who can't stay on targets." I have to work very hard to put out competitive DPS numbers in PVE for NiM content. I wouldn't be NiM raiding if I didn't know my class, and this is a very ignorant statement. The game is supposed to be made for a balanced group, as in, two ranged and two melee DPS. In many cases you can get away with ranged/melee heavy, but each class brings unique utility to a group that you miss out on if you all stack the same class. Sometimes, this is fine, others, it is of great detriment to your group.

[Zakittor]

Hello,

 

This post looks exactly like the one I posted as a response in the Class balance topic earlier.

Clearly, I totally agree.

 

WayOfTheWarrior, as you did before, you post parses on dummies instead of those on bosses.

I'll start thinking you're working for Bioware .

Or maybe you simply refuse to see the facts in front of you.

 

I would also like to add some information.

First, we talked about casts and channels, but there are also pushbacks.

I also think that all distants are not equal in terms of cast / channel.

I will take the example of the main rotation of the Virulence sniper: there are 28 ability activations on 36 GCDs. Of these 28, there are 10 casts and 8 channels. This means that you spend 64% of your activations (= 50% of the time) doing casts or channels.

Does anybody really think that it will not impact dps on any boss fight ?

 

I would also like to add a few observations on the balance of classes.

I think that the class balance, at the DPS level (not utilities), should take into account other factors:

- The number of casts / channels required for a correct rotation (Example: Rotation of the sniper virulence above).

- The possibility and the damage of AOE and spread. How much AOE do you have? Are there any major damage? Is the spread part of your rotation? Does it cost energy? (Examples: Smugglers do not have a lot of zone damage. Lightnings sorcs have ability that will hit nearby targets).

- Energy management (example: IO mercs can not spread all the time if they do not want to be running out of energy very fast).

We talked about dots versus bursts, but not the AOE capacity ant energy management of each class.

 

But at the end, I do not think the development team will read this post, let alone giving us an answer.

Too bad, I like this game.

[Threjyan]

Does anybody really think that it will not impact dps on any boss fight ?

 

i dont - to the extent that the mechanics in this game are much more punishing to mdps then rdps.

 

i tried to find an old post from the devs about monolith and the unfriendly those new ops were to mdps (rava and tos), but all i could find was this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=837170

 

i find it funny, that now that the rdps classes are getting nerfed (and i do think people are just going crazy about it, more then it will actually impact the game and its progression or whatever), people start to complain about melee classes. its kinda ironic now that they are introducing some sort of "balance" people complain about mdps.

 

its kinda amuzing to read the justifications of players to claim equal dps for mdps and rdps, or less disparity (at least on pve)

Edited July 5, 2017 by Threjyan

[Threjyan]

in any case there are here some topics of the situation we are discussing here:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=788652

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=815065

 

althou those posts are old, it gives an idea of how rdps have been favoured vs mdps.

[blinkerathome]

i tried to find an old post from the devs about monolith and the unfriendly those new ops were to mdps (rava and tos), but all i could find was this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=837170

 

I have to laugh about this because monolith (as kwerty states) is actually quite melee friendly. And I think you are referring to the last post in that thread about rav and tos. The huge problem with that post is that it states mechanics that aren't executed correctly or in a specific melee unfriendly fashion. Start using proper tactics and group coordination and all gets easier (as intended). And it even includes the old Underlurker melee punishment (extra damage in melee range of the adds) which is not even in the game any more...

[shyroman]

snip

 

If you're going to post parses, at least use 2.5 mil. A 2min - 2min 30sec fight is too short to show an accurate representation of the sustained damage of a spec. The chance of someone gettting an absurdly lucky parse is so much higher than 2.5mil. Also with the lightning parses you show, they use the same rotation as one would use if they had the chain lightning bug, because that rotation has a higher dps even without the bug, but it is impractical in ops having to hardcast chain lightning because of how bad pushback can be for that. Kind of like posting sniper parses with heavy roll usage, it does nothing for your arguement as it is very impractical in ops.

[Dewlmenow]

in any case there are here some topics of the situation we are discussing here:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=788652

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=815065

 

althou those posts are old, it gives an idea of how rdps have been favoured vs mdps.

 

The vast majority of those are invalid due to any of mechanics being changed, more experience with the bosses, or the gap closers/complete elimination of non-moving channels for melee. I think that for a balanced group of 2 melee dps and 2 ranged dps there are fewer boss fights with mechanics that seriously punish melee vs mechanics that seriously punish ranged.

Edited July 5, 2017 by Dewlmenow

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

If you're going to post parses, at least use 2.5 mil. A 2min - 2min 30sec fight is too short to show an accurate representation of the sustained damage of a spec. The chance of someone gettting an absurdly lucky parse is so much higher than 2.5mil. Also with the lightning parses you show, they use the same rotation as one would use if they had the chain lightning bug, because that rotation has a higher dps even without the bug, but it is impractical in ops having to hardcast chain lightning because of how bad pushback can be for that. Kind of like posting sniper parses with heavy roll usage, it does nothing for your arguement as it is very impractical in ops.

 

That was purely used for an example, nothing else.

[mike_carton]

It's not that being melee isn't detrimental in some ways, but being able to put out DPS is not one of them. If having too many melee on a fight causes you to wipe, it's most likely due to mechanics, not DPS problems. Iif it's DPS problems, then that's a gear/L2P issue.

The number of posts where the posters posit the exact opposite is astounding. It is almost as if people are arguing from some theoretical standpoint or a mental model rather than actual practical experience running Ops day in and day out.

 

For those that disagree:

 

• Run VM Ops (MM Ops not particularly more helpful in this regard)
  
• Note Discipline and gear level of all the DPS members
  
• Get everyone in StarParse
  
• Review at the end of the Op
  

 

You'll find that Schwarzschilda's argument is more than held up by real-world numbers.

[Schwarzschilda]

WayOfTheWarriorX, you have yet to respond to me. Why? If you continue to not respond, I can only assume that you don't have any rebuttals to what I'm saying and agree with me completely.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

This time I'm not going to ignore your condescending tone.

 

This is me killing Revan HM as a Guardian:

This is the parse log from that kill, the 6th highest DPS log submitted to Parsely pre-5.2: http://parsely.io/parser/view/256083/25

 

I didn't record my kills as a Merc or a Slinger, oh well. You probably don't believe me that I know how to play those classes. That's fine, I know they're both Revanchists. Whether you believe me is pretty irrelevant. To suggest I don't know how to play both melee and ranged DPS at a high level is to suggest something other than the truth. If you don't agree with my assessment of these fights, then you are entitled to your own opinion. Regardless, it has been my personal experience that there is no handicap for melee on any of the fights you mentioned besides Torque, which is even then pretty minimal. If you are experiencing problems, that is a L2P issue. Either that or your group is making it more difficult for you than it needs to be. The point is that when the mechanics of a fight are executed correctly, there are very few fights where melee is a disadvantage, and is, in fact, at an advantage in many of them.

 

You ignored my point about damage taken differences between melee and ranged. I'm going to assume that means you don't have a rebuttal for it.

 

I in no way, shape, or form, suggested that range doesn't affect uptime. You're taking it as a foregone conclusion that melee will always lose more downtime than ranged, when that is very often not the case. What about in a fight like Firebrand and Stormcaller, where ranged are always going to lose some uptime running to and from the shield for defensive systems? Melee can simply leap back to the tank, and as a result lose absolutely no uptime. What about Draxus with all the target swapping and shields that ranged are absolutely forced to move to and stand in to damage the adds? Grob'thok with the forced movement from mining droids that melee can simply dance around and lose no uptime and two knockups that interrupt casts? For every case where you can think of that melee loses significantly more uptime than ranged, I can think of one where ranged loses more uptime than melee. And no, basic attack does not make up this difference because it's all the ranged can do to make up for the fact that melee loses almost zero uptime.

 

I also did not say I was taking PvP out of the discussion, I said it was beyond the scope of what I was talking about in my original post (though not specifically, sorry if that was vague). Even so, you have not acknowledged the points I made about DPSing in PvP as a melee and ranged class.

 

You continually discount the Parsely leader boards by saying "they are the best of the best". But you know what? The best of the best are the people who know their classes very well and are able to take full advantage of all the tools they have to offer to put out DPS, while mitigating the weaknesses as best as possible. THAT is what the game should be balanced for.

 

 

What does your singualer experience have to do with every other player in the game who may play the same class and spec in the same Operation? Because you were able to perform as you did that one time that's the way you will always perform? Everyone else should perform that way as well? Everyone you played with on that run has absolutely no baring on your performance? Would you have performed the same way if you had a healer who wasn't quite as on the ball at the one you had? Every tank holds agro just as a good as every other tank? Every healer is the same skill level?

 

Of course varying skill levels play their part, I have said that at every single juncture repeatedly, but, it is hardly the only part.

 

Parsley does not set the standard for this game. BW does. It doesn't matter what you think or I think, it matters what they say is the final determinating factor. You think they base anything on a 3rd party website? You think every player in the game is performing at the same level as the top place holders on parsely?

 

Your personal opinion on the matter, much like your experience in this one fight you are sighting, means absolutely nothing with regard to the differences that melee and ranged specs experience.

 

Let's say you are like, the best player ever. What does that have to do with any other person in the entire world?

 

If you do that same fight again, with all the same people, and every single thing the same as the time you are siting above, I gaurntee you there is a zero percent chance that parse from the subsequant experience will not be the same as parse you have linked. You know? RNG. Period. Things went you way that time around and that's not to say you wouldn't do well again, not at all, but you are not everyman. Whatever your experiences may be, that doesn't mean thats how it is or should be for everyone else who just happens to play the same class and spec.

 

And I don't recall at any time ever saying or intimating that melee is underperforming or incapable to beating out ranged. I have said quite the opposite.

 

If you want to use parsley as the defining judge of class balance, than again, you are basing class balance based on some very few exceptionally skilled players with great experience can do ONE time.

 

Perhaps you have noticed instances on parsely wherein the person with the #1 parse has 200 or 300 greater DPS than the person who came in 2nd place on that fight. What happened that caused this great disparity in numbers? How do you account for those differences?

 

RNG/Skill/Group compostition/Experience/ Internet connection and any number of other factors. Does this mean that no one on earth, ever got in those 200-300 PT difference because it's not on parsley? When was the last time you saw someone upload a DPS of 2.7k in the last two years? Why would they?

 

Your parse proves what happened one time. It says nothing about all the previuos attempts and possibly wipes. Are you saying that was your first go at that fight? Are you saying you had never done that fight before the one your parse is from? Are you saying you do NiM and you don't wipe countless times?

 

How many other gaurdian parses have you found on that fight that were able to do as good or better than you that ONE time? There are plenty of Operation fights that melee have the higher DPS on than Ranged do, but that goes both ways. There are fights that ranged have the highest parse on.

 

Where you are getting this idea that anyone is saying that melee are underperforming or are incapable of clearly any content whatsoever in this game exactly, because you never got it from me, that's for sure.

 

How many times did you wipe on that fight before the fight you linked your parse to?

 

You are using a 6th place DPS parse as your point of case? 6th? That means at a bare minumum 5 other people did better than you. I'm not saying beating Revan HM isn't an accomplishment, it most certainly is on any toon. But what does that prove exactly? Does that prove conclusively that melee do not suffer greater forced downtime than ranged do on every single other fight on all difficulties in the game? Really?

 

What does that parse have to do with PVP? That parse proves that ranged have no advantage on melee very often in PVP?

 

You must think very highly of yourself to presume that a 6th place DPS parse proves anything other than what you did, one time, in one fight, on one spec.

 

It wouldn't have mattered if it was the number 1 parse. It does not prove that melee don't suffer from greater forced downtime than ranged do at times. It also doesnt prove that you did better than the ranged dps in your group. But, it does show one important thing. The part RNG plays in things. You had a 49% crit hit ratio. That means, half of your attacks crited. Is that a common a ratio? If 49% crits landed considered an average amount or an insanely high amount?

 

You might as well just say it had a 50% crit hit ratio which is nothing short of exceptionally lucky RNG. Lucky is the only word you can use because you have no control over RNG.

 

That's not all we find in your parse of intrest,

 

 

You had an absorption of 315923, your average Carnage mara on parsley on the same fight, the highest one was 48k and most of the other ones were in 4 diget number. So, you were standing in a shyt ton of stupid. Which makes perfect sence when we look at the healing situation on your parse.

 

Healing recieved was 1759514 with effective heals at 45% and a crit heal rate at 47%.

 

Compared to Carnage maras on the same fight, half of which didn't have even a 1% crit heal rate and effective heals substantially lower than yours.

 

I don't behove you the accomplishment, any kill on Revan HM says something about the player. But you had a great deal of help from your healers keeping you standing more than the same Carnage maras who did the same fight on parsely with better DPS I might add.

 

This is an Arsenal Merc, same fight, same difficulty, did higher DPS than you did. - http://parsely.io/parser/view/290730/0

 

There are no entries for Commando using Gunnery on Parsely, so I guess from your point of view that means no Commando using Gunnery ever did Revan HM. If you want to claim parsley speaks for the game than you have to say that no commando using gunnery ever did Revan HM. [There not the only class missing there either, I guess the other ones never did revan hm either]

 

Here's a Virulence Sniper, same fight, did better DPS than you did - http://parsely.io/parser/view/283445/0

 

There are no DPS sorcs or Pyro PTs, or Marksman Snipers, or Gunslingers or sages or Sentinels of any spec at all who are on Parsley for Revan HM since 5.1

 

How exactly do you account for that? No one in this game has beaten beat Revan HM with any of those classes or specs? There weren't even any Anni or Fury Marauders for that fight on Parsely, not one. I guess no one ever beat Revan HM on an Anni Mara. Parsley doesn't have it, that it couldn't have ever happened since 5.1.

 

I make the distinction of 5.1 here because you stated your clear occured before 5.2. Since than a whole new tier of gear came out, and even with better gear than was available back than, even though the difficulty of the Op hasn't changed in that time, these figures above remain true.

 

If we are going to talk about the game, especially in the present tense, it might be best to use the statistics that apply to the game since 5.2, as after all, that's what we're playing in.

 

Ya know what's funny, if you look at the parsley list for the fight on live - http://parsely.io/parser/operations/revan/8/HM/dps/all/all/all/live/0/. It seems to me you have both ranged and melee in the mix. Whatese I find funny is that the person that came in first place had a DPS of 12k, the person who came in second place 8.4k.

 

Do Deception Assassins do more than 4K more DPS than Lethality operatives do all of a sudden? Because the last time I checked Lethality Operatices are Ranked 1 on the DPS chart and Deception Assassins are ranked 7.

 

Tell me exactly how Parsley matches up with the DPS ranking that BW has set up?

 

It doesn't. That's how. Which is exactly my point. Parsley is not representitive of class balance in this game. It is representive of only those people who upload parses to parsley, and I think you would agree that alot more people play this game than you see in parsley.

 

 

Your parse does not change the fact, that when a melee gets a white grenade on him in SS and he has to move out of melee ranged so as not to have other players get hit by it when it explodes he cannot attack at a certain point and has to wait til the grenade goes off, he gets back up and gets back to the boss before he can resume attacking, whereas ranged DPS can be attacking a lot more of the time while he has the white grenade under the same conditions.

 

Just like when a melee get's Firebug on Thrasher fight in SnV he is without question going to have greater downtime DPS loss than a ranged would if they get the Firebug, and there are plently of times where you can get the firebug multiple times.

 

In closing, I do not doubt for a second you are more accomplished raider than I am, I all but stopped raiding since 5.0 when both my raid teams bellied up and gear was taken out of raids. But even though you are a more accomplished raider than I am, that doesn't mean my eyes don't work, that I can't comprehend the effects of downtime and how they will effect melee differently than ranged at times, resulting in a greater net downtime generally speaking for melee than ranged. I have done the same Operations you have, I have done NiM level content [probably not as much as you, but certainly more than your average joe], I also know I am far from the only person who seems to share that opinion, BW being one of them.

 

If you want to judge class balance based on Parsley, you go right ahead. Nothing on parsley is going to convince me that what my own eyes and experience has shown me, what I hear a ton of other players saying as well and what BW is saying. Granted, they're very seldom right about anything, but in this case, I think they are.

 

Your attempts to use Parsley as a counter argument to melee not having more forced downtime than ranged generally speaking are disingenuous and not compelling in the least. But, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

 

P.S. You want to "call me out again", do it in person, we're on the same server.

Edited July 7, 2017 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[blinkerathome]

@WayOfTheWarriorX

 

If you played nightmare operations on ranged and melee classes then you would know that still being in attack range doesn't make you able to use your rotation as a ranged class. Ranged have to channel or cast attacks and most of them cannot be done on the move, so whenever you need to step out of a circle or away from a conal attack you will be cancelling your channel or cancelling your cast -> dmg loss.

 

Towards that revan hm fight and how you 'prove' to him that ranged are better for it by linking other parsely fights. I do think you know about Ixales Starparse? The combat tool most groups are using, even pug groups for harder content. And certainly almost 100% of the recent Revan hm fights are done with Starparse for the timers of push and pull. Now here comes the good part about Starparse. When you have Starparse running in Raid mode then it gathers ehps/dps/dtps of you for every fight and sends it to Ixales server to analyse general performance and lets you see how well you did in comparison to other Maras/Operatives/Mercs... . Looking at those statistics (with a huge dataset available) you can still see that melee perform better then ranged on all hm fights and in particular on Revan hm.

 

Now with this kind of data, collected not only with the best of the best attempts but with worst attempts in it as well, I want you to explain that ranged have so much advantage. Maybe it's just you not seeing that instant abilities are way better then casted/channeled in a pve environment? Maybe for you and all those others it's a simple l2p issue as the vast majority of the players and their fights show that being melee helps you on keeping uptime in boss fights.

 

 

Edit: And say hello to your wonderful example of Sword Squadron in ToS hm: You start to see a pattern?

Edited July 8, 2017 by blinkerathome

[Schwarzschilda]

What does your singualer experience have to do with every other player in the game who may play the same class and spec in the same Operation? Because you were able to perform as you did that one time that's the way you will always perform? Everyone else should perform that way as well? Everyone you played with on that run has absolutely no baring on your performance? Would you have performed the same way if you had a healer who wasn't quite as on the ball at the one you had? Every tank holds agro just as a good as every other tank? Every healer is the same skill level?

 

Of course varying skill levels play their part, I have said that at every single juncture repeatedly, but, it is hardly the only part.

 

Parsley does not set the standard for this game. BW does. It doesn't matter what you think or I think, it matters what they say is the final determinating factor. You think they base anything on a 3rd party website? You think every player in the game is performing at the same level as the top place holders on parsely?

 

Your personal opinion on the matter, much like your experience in this one fight you are sighting, means absolutely nothing with regard to the differences that melee and ranged specs experience.

 

Let's say you are like, the best player ever. What does that have to do with any other person in the entire world?

 

If you do that same fight again, with all the same people, and every single thing the same as the time you are siting above, I gaurntee you there is a zero percent chance that parse from the subsequant experience will not be the same as parse you have linked. You know? RNG. Period. Things went you way that time around and that's not to say you wouldn't do well again, not at all, but you are not everyman. Whatever your experiences may be, that doesn't mean thats how it is or should be for everyone else who just happens to play the same class and spec.

 

And I don't recall at any time ever saying or intimating that melee is underperforming or incapable to beating out ranged. I have said quite the opposite.

 

If you want to use parsley as the defining judge of class balance, than again, you are basing class balance based on some very few exceptionally skilled players with great experience can do ONE time.

 

Perhaps you have noticed instances on parsely wherein the person with the #1 parse has 200 or 300 greater DPS than the person who came in 2nd place on that fight. What happened that caused this great disparity in numbers? How do you account for those differences?

 

RNG/Skill/Group compostition/Experience/ Internet connection and any number of other factors. Does this mean that no one on earth, ever got in those 200-300 PT difference because it's not on parsley? When was the last time you saw someone upload a DPS of 2.7k in the last two years? Why would they?

 

Your parse proves what happened one time. It says nothing about all the previuos attempts and possibly wipes. Are you saying that was your first go at that fight? Are you saying you had never done that fight before the one your parse is from? Are you saying you do NiM and you don't wipe countless times?

 

How many other gaurdian parses have you found on that fight that were able to do as good or better than you that ONE time? There are plenty of Operation fights that melee have the higher DPS on than Ranged do, but that goes both ways. There are fights that ranged have the highest parse on.

 

Where you are getting this idea that anyone is saying that melee are underperforming or are incapable of clearly any content whatsoever in this game exactly, because you never got it from me, that's for sure.

 

How many times did you wipe on that fight before the fight you linked your parse to?

 

You are using a 6th place DPS parse as your point of case? 6th? That means at a bare minumum 5 other people did better than you. I'm not saying beating Revan HM isn't an accomplishment, it most certainly is on any toon. But what does that prove exactly? Does that prove conclusively that melee do not suffer greater forced downtime than ranged do on every single other fight on all difficulties in the game? Really?

 

What does that parse have to do with PVP? That parse proves that ranged have no advantage on melee very often in PVP?

 

You must think very highly of yourself to presume that a 6th place DPS parse proves anything other than what you did, one time, in one fight, on one spec.

 

It wouldn't have mattered if it was the number 1 parse. It does not prove that melee don't suffer from greater forced downtime than ranged do at times. It also doesnt prove that you did better than the ranged dps in your group. But, it does show one important thing. The part RNG plays in things. You had a 49% crit hit ratio. That means, half of your attacks crited. Is that a common a ratio? If 49% crits landed considered an average amount or an insanely high amount?

 

You might as well just say it had a 50% crit hit ratio which is nothing short of exceptionally lucky RNG. Lucky is the only word you can use because you have no control over RNG.

 

That's not all we find in your parse of intrest,

 

 

You had an absorption of 315923, your average Carnage mara on parsley on the same fight, the highest one was 48k and most of the other ones were in 4 diget number. So, you were standing in a shyt ton of stupid. Which makes perfect sence when we look at the healing situation on your parse.

 

Healing recieved was 1759514 with effective heals at 45% and a crit heal rate at 47%.

 

Compared to Carnage maras on the same fight, half of which didn't have even a 1% crit heal rate and effective heals substantially lower than yours.

 

I don't behove you the accomplishment, any kill on Revan HM says something about the player. But you had a great deal of help from your healers keeping you standing more than the same Carnage maras who did the same fight on parsely with better DPS I might add.

 

This is an Arsenal Merc, same fight, same difficulty, did higher DPS than you did. - http://parsely.io/parser/view/290730/0

 

There are no entries for Commando using Gunnery on Parsely, so I guess from your point of view that means no Commando using Gunnery ever did Revan HM. If you want to claim parsley speaks for the game than you have to say that no commando using gunnery ever did Revan HM. [There not the only class missing there either, I guess the other ones never did revan hm either]

 

Here's a Virulence Sniper, same fight, did better DPS than you did - http://parsely.io/parser/view/283445/0

 

There are no DPS sorcs or Pyro PTs, or Marksman Snipers, or Gunslingers or sages or Sentinels of any spec at all who are on Parsley for Revan HM since 5.1

 

How exactly do you account for that? No one in this game has beaten beat Revan HM with any of those classes or specs? There weren't even any Anni or Fury Marauders for that fight on Parsely, not one. I guess no one ever beat Revan HM on an Anni Mara. Parsley doesn't have it, that it couldn't have ever happened since 5.1.

 

I make the distinction of 5.1 here because you stated your clear occured before 5.2. Since than a whole new tier of gear came out, and even with better gear than was available back than, even though the difficulty of the Op hasn't changed in that time, these figures above remain true.

 

If we are going to talk about the game, especially in the present tense, it might be best to use the statistics that apply to the game since 5.2, as after all, that's what we're playing in.

 

Ya know what's funny, if you look at the parsley list for the fight on live - http://parsely.io/parser/operations/revan/8/HM/dps/all/all/all/live/0/. It seems to me you have both ranged and melee in the mix. Whatese I find funny is that the person that came in first place had a DPS of 12k, the person who came in second place 8.4k.

 

Do Deception Assassins do more than 4K more DPS than Lethality operatives do all of a sudden? Because the last time I checked Lethality Operatices are Ranked 1 on the DPS chart and Deception Assassins are ranked 7.

 

Tell me exactly how Parsley matches up with the DPS ranking that BW has set up?

 

It doesn't. That's how. Which is exactly my point. Parsley is not representitive of class balance in this game. It is representive of only those people who upload parses to parsley, and I think you would agree that alot more people play this game than you see in parsley.

 

 

Your parse does not change the fact, that when a melee gets a white grenade on him in SS and he has to move out of melee ranged so as not to have other players get hit by it when it explodes he cannot attack at a certain point and has to wait til the grenade goes off, he gets back up and gets back to the boss before he can resume attacking, whereas ranged DPS can be attacking a lot more of the time while he has the white grenade under the same conditions.

 

Just like when a melee get's Firebug on Thrasher fight in SnV he is without question going to have greater downtime DPS loss than a ranged would if they get the Firebug, and there are plently of times where you can get the firebug multiple times.

 

In closing, I do not doubt for a second you are more accomplished raider than I am, I all but stopped raiding since 5.0 when both my raid teams bellied up and gear was taken out of raids. But even though you are a more accomplished raider than I am, that doesn't mean my eyes don't work, that I can't comprehend the effects of downtime and how they will effect melee differently than ranged at times, resulting in a greater net downtime generally speaking for melee than ranged. I have done the same Operations you have, I have done NiM level content [probably not as much as you, but certainly more than your average joe], I also know I am far from the only person who seems to share that opinion, BW being one of them.

 

If you want to judge class balance based on Parsley, you go right ahead. Nothing on parsley is going to convince me that what my own eyes and experience has shown me, what I hear a ton of other players saying as well and what BW is saying. Granted, they're very seldom right about anything, but in this case, I think they are.

 

Your attempts to use Parsley as a counter argument to melee not having more forced downtime than ranged generally speaking are disingenuous and not compelling in the least. But, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

 

P.S. You want to "call me out again", do it in person, we're on the same server.

 

I'm going to give you some exact quotes of yours on this thread:

 

- "Ranged should have lower DPS than melee. If their has been one meta that has shown that as clearly, I can't think of one that more clearly demonstrates this more than 5.0 with 3.0 coming in second."

- "Even a broken rotation is better than no rotation at all. Even a basic attack is better than no attack. Even the temporary lose of use of channeled attacks is better than no attacks at all, even a limited about of DPSing is better than no DPS at all. Mobility and attack range are not the same thing. No mobility in the world is going to allow a melee equal uptime on Malaphar as that had by ranged."

- "These differences are in no way shape of form "averaged out". I do not find that argument compelling or mitigating at all because it is no different than saying melee don't suffer from more downtime than ranged do. If it averaged out there would be no difference to site in the first place and therefore no need to give melee some higher DPS than ranged to compensate for the lesser amount of uptime experienced."

- "Does melee need much higher DPS than ranged to compensate for lower uptime, no they don't, they need just enough to balance out those differences."

- "Ranged do not suffer as much downtime as melee can. Whatever the numbers turn out to be, that fact does not go away, which is the theme of this particular thread"

 

You aren't suggesting in some way that melee underperforms ranged? Why else would you say that melee needs higher DPS than ranged? Why else would you continually repeat the point that melee suffers more forced downtime than ranged (which isn't true)? Please, enlighten me of what you are actually suggesting.

 

I was not actually using Revan HM or a parse log as a particular example for my point, only to show that you were incorrect in assuming that I hadn't cleared the fights I had claimed to, but since you chose to pick apart my kill, here we go. In no way, shape, or form did I ever say that melee wasn't capable of clearing content. I'm not even arguing for melee to be buffed in any way! I'm arguing for ranged not to be nerfed. Bioware has stated that they want ranged to have a lower DPS target than melee by default because it's seen as a disadvantage to be melee, but I'm demonstrating from my experience in HM/NiM raiding that being melee isn't actually a disadvantage. In fact, in many fights, it's a big advantage! As you say, there are fights where melee and ranged have an advantage, and if you knew the mechanics for every fight in the game, you'd see that it's basically a wash overall. Therefore, melee and ranged should be about equal for DPS targets because then you need a balanced group to be able to clear all content.

 

Your response here suggests to me that you don't really understand the mechanics of Revan HM, or high-end raiding in general, or the class I play, or the meaning of Parsely logs. Every pull of a boss will be slightly different, but that doesn't invalidate a singular experience because the mechanics are the same every time. No matter the group composition, group of actual players, gear level (thus why the difference between 5.1 and 5.2 is irrelevant), RNG, or whatever else you can think of, the mechanics do not change. It doesn't matter how many times you wiped. Thus, the numbers you pull are a good indicator of how well you are able to do on a fight compared to the other players in the game. Those numbers matter when you are looking at how different classes compare on a fight, because over a large sample, it shows which classes tend to do well or poorly on a fight. And if you look at the aggregate, melee and ranged do about equally well on operations fights.

 

You continually discounting the parses because "they are the best of the best" or "RNG" or "why would anyone post a bad parse" is laughable. I don't particularly care that it's not what Bioware balances on, I am saying that it is what they should balance on. I'm going to say it again because it bears repeating: the top Parsely logs show what people who know their classes inside and out - how to put out DPS, avoid downtime, execute mechanics, and contribute to group health - are able to do. Only when you know a class inside and out are you qualified to say where it should realistically stand in DPS rankings. Thus, these logs should be the one of the primary considerations for balancing, though by no means the only one. Best would be to have players on the PTS testing their proposed changes and giving them feedback. To argue anything that Parsely logs are irrelevant for class balancing is to suggest that someone other than the people most qualified to talk about their class should be balancing the game.

 

Finally, you clearly don't know anything about Vigilance Guardian or what parses look like with a Sage healer. You say I got insanely lucky with a 49% crit rate, but if you knew Vigilance Guardian, you'd know that it gets bonuses to the critical chance of two of its key abilities (Plasma Brand and Overhead Slash) plus all 3 of it's burning DoT effects, has an autocrit on Blade Storm built into the rotation, and has a set bonus that increases the critical chance of Blade Barrage. Add in the fact that your critical chance should be pushing about 42.5% from gear, and you end up with an overall critical chance of about 50% in 5.0, if not higher. 49% is a pretty typical number, if not slightly unlucky. The damage I absorbed was not from me defending attacks, it was from Force Armor from having a Sage healer. Thus, it is in no way relevant to me "standing in stupid" to farm DPS. If you look, only a small amount of my damage is from farming using Saber Reflect (318 out of 7445), and, again, if you knew how to play Guardian, you'd know that I am in no way inordinately endangering my group by utilizing Saber Reflect.

 

As one more point, you say that a Deception Assassin posted the highest DPS for that fight. Check the combat time - it's 260.768 seconds, which is far, far too short of a combat time to be believable. Typical pulls of Revan last about 10 minutes (600 seconds). This log is bugged with stealth out and how it interacts with mechanics; it can be disregarded.

 

I don't know exactly what you intended to prove with your post. You say "in closing" but there isn't really a whole lot to conclude from what ends up being a list of points for why my Parsely log isn't relevant for class balancing in some way (which are mostly not based upon facts). You've still ignored most of my arguments from before - there is nothing to address how casts/channels interact with mechanics compared to differences in attack range, nothing about DTPS diffferences, nothing about differences in uptime, nothing about actually playing PvP.

 

P.S. I don't actually play on the Shadowlands anymore; I've transferred to the Harbinger. Again, that was an old video and parse.

[Khiriath]

Start point: Can all classes clear all content at recomended gear rating(230 for HM 236 for NiM) with recommended group composition 2T 4D 2H.

 

The simple answer to that is no. From 5.0 at least there were some classes that had to be overgeared or even in 248 BiS gear to even put out the numbers necessary to clear HM content(Sorc/Sage DPS and and a few other specs). What these nerfs have done is simply drop more classes/specs into the not viable category.

 

My parses on my Arsenal Merc took a 2k dive from yesterday to today. Gonna switch to IO to see if that is any better, otherwise I'm going to have pull out of my prog team because my class can simply no longer pull it's own weight.

 

If every class can pass content in recommended gear, than I really don't care if MDPS DOT has a 10% swing over RDPS Burst. I don't need to be the most powerful class in game, and I don't need to be murder on two feet in PvP, that isn't why I play PvP.

 

However, as not every class could, even before the nerfs put out the necessary numbers to clear content in the recommended gear, with the recommended group composition, we started with a broken model that only got more broke when they started swinging the nerf hammer.

[Schwarzschilda]

Now that the nerfs for Merc and Sniper have been released, I can say that the results on live fights have confirmed that ranged classes are underperforming in terms of DPS.

 

Some examples:

 

- Dread Master Brontes HM, with only 5 of the top 50 parses being ranged and exactly ZERO Mercs/Mandos

- The Terror from Beyond HM, with only 2 of the top 48 (excluding the top 2 bugged parses) being ranged

- Firebrand and Stormcaller HM, with 5 of the top 50 being ranged

- Sword Squadron HM, @Wayofthewarriorx's favorite example of a melee-unfriendly fight, with only 9 of the top 50 parses from ranged classes

 

The vast majority of the ranged parses are from Lightning/TK Sorc/Sages, most of whom are utilizing the Chain Lightning/TK Wave bug and can thus be discounted as well. Therefore, ranged classes are actually performing worse than it seems here. There's a bit of a selection bias here in that all Merc/Mando parses and most Sniper/Slinger parses were wiped on Tuesday. But out of all of the top 50 parses in those four fights from ranged classes, only four come from classes that were just nerfed, and two of those parses were from Mac and Dongo, two of the best players in the game across all servers. And they weren't even remotely close to the top parses on their respective fights. It's almost to the point where, unless you're heavily stacking melee classes, you won't be able to pass the DPS check on a number of fights. And that means the game is unbalanced.

 

If anyone suggests that it's warranted that Bioware's target DPS for ranged should be as much lower as it is than their target for melee, they are suggesting something that goes against all available evidence.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Schwarzschilda

[Icykill_]

Classes shouldn't just be balanced on wether they are ranged or melee,

 

They should be balanced on -

Survivability

Dps

Class role

Real game environment situations and not dummy parsing 🙄

 

If a class has high survivability without out being healed by a third party, then they shouldn't be able to dps as hard as a class with less survivability

If a class is in a utility role, ie crowd control, off heal, off tank.. then it shouldn't do as much damage as a pure dps class.

 

Classes and specs should be balanced around their role first and foremost.

Are they -

Pure dps single target

Pure dps single/AOE target

Hybrid Utility (and what percentage of a utility, ie, is crowd control a big thing like engineering snipers plasma probe)

Pure tank

Pure heal

 

If a tank can do huge dps (nearly the same as pure dps) if they wear dps gear, then they need a dps nerf somewhere to make them more tank like.

If a dps can off heal third parties close to what a healer can do, then they need a third party heal nerf

If a pure dps has too high survivability they either need a nerf to survivability.

 

There should also be tweaks and balance based on fighting other classes.

 

Classes and specs dps output should be based on those categories and not just split between ranged and melee

 

There are lots of factors to consider and it seems bio take the most basic (and lazy) way to do it. Currently the process is flawed and they balance on dps parsing dummies.

 

Edit : and also skill required to play the class. If it's a face roll class I dont think it should produce better results than a higher skilled class. ie if you can face roll heals, dps or tank, then you shouldn't do the same dps, same heal or same protection as the most difficult classes to play and get the same output.

I'm not saying it should be a big difference, but there should be a difference because not many people are going to master those top difficulty classes and the average player of those higher skilled classes will never produce the same output as the face roll classes.

But if all classes were balanced properly there shouldn't be any face roll classes to start with 😉

Edited July 17, 2017 by Icykill_

[Threjyan]

Now that the nerfs for Merc and Sniper have been released, I can say that the results on live fights have confirmed that ranged classes are underperforming in terms of DPS.

 

Some examples:

 

- Dread Master Brontes HM, with only 5 of the top 50 parses being ranged and exactly ZERO Mercs/Mandos

- The Terror from Beyond HM, with only 2 of the top 48 (excluding the top 2 bugged parses) being ranged

- Firebrand and Stormcaller HM, with 5 of the top 50 being ranged

- Sword Squadron HM, @Wayofthewarriorx's favorite example of a melee-unfriendly fight, with only 9 of the top 50 parses from ranged classes

 

The vast majority of the ranged parses are from Lightning/TK Sorc/Sages, most of whom are utilizing the Chain Lightning/TK Wave bug and can thus be discounted as well. Therefore, ranged classes are actually performing worse than it seems here. There's a bit of a selection bias here in that all Merc/Mando parses and most Sniper/Slinger parses were wiped on Tuesday. But out of all of the top 50 parses in those four fights from ranged classes, only four come from classes that were just nerfed, and two of those parses were from Mac and Dongo, two of the best players in the game across all servers. And they weren't even remotely close to the top parses on their respective fights. It's almost to the point where, unless you're heavily stacking melee classes, you won't be able to pass the DPS check on a number of fights. And that means the game is unbalanced.

 

If anyone suggests that it's warranted that Bioware's target DPS for ranged should be as much lower as it is than their target for melee, they are suggesting something that goes against all available evidence.

 

the problem is people rerolling at the 1st sight of nerfs. then they will all go and play maras, sins or operatives

 

if the skill is there all classes in this game can do hm. the problem is that game is to hard

 

ps: prolly the logarythm of scalling ops badly tunned for 5.0, but even with the nerfs all content is doable in hm by any class.

 

most people didnt realize that this is intentional to make people play other classes and grind all the way again and keep a few more months sub.

[TUXs]

I thought this was the whole reason they went to all instant cast on melee myself. I'm not saying they didn't need to be tweaked after 5.0, all classes did, but their goals seem out of line with what the actual game environment is.

[Icykill_]

I thought this was the whole reason they went to all instant cast on melee myself. I'm not saying they didn't need to be tweaked after 5.0, all classes did, but their goals seem out of line with what the actual game environment is.

 

Agreed, they don't seem to test in a real player environment with real players.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Icykill_

[DarthSpuds]

and yet, most raid teams composition throughout the history of the game has been slanted toward ranged dps. .

 

Well that's because RDPS means that some of the DPS can be out of Melee harms way, and it allows the Healers to stay further away from damage and still be able to have everyone in range for heals.

 

Nothing at all to do with DPS parses.

 

All The Best