Class Change Feedback in 5.3 and 5.4

[ZETA_SCORPII]

Thanks for nerfing this game to the point where it's not fun. You will not get another dime from me and I hope BioWare Austin employees don't EVER work on another Star Wars game.

[Tarbuch]

Closely monitoring balance and making small changes quickly when warranted is all we can hope for

 

95% of the anger comes from the community instantly seeing an issue and it not being addressed for a year. How much anger would there be if they nerfed the sniper slow spam and merc DPS survivability and sorc heals a bit in a reasonable time frame? I never understood why it takes a year to modify a slow from 70% to 50 or reducing a self heal by 20%. I would love to see slight changes on a bi-weekly basis. (Slight being a keyword there)

 

 

 

Great news that there will be a new approach taken.

 

Because the balance developer was in parental leave.

 

On the other hand; why is the PvP balancing more important tham PvE performance.

The recent nerf hit the Sorc/Sage dps and self healing without addressing the dps under performance of the class at all.

Siper MM (and GS mirror)is still the lowest performing of the pure DPS class, as they cannot do any real damage at melee range.

 

Vanguard/PT dps specs are still nerfed to ground, 65% increase to AOE ability does not increase the dps to single target at all, it still is only a resouce management spec where you don't get to DPs but are limited to resouce management, where you are most of the time hitting the default attack more than the other abilitie as you are out of resources. Only way to get out of this is to increase to augment your gear with more alacrity which will lower you DPS potential vs. Power/Mastery augments.

 

Just separate the PvP from PvE completely as the PvE has nothing to do with PvP. Mobs are not players and do not have the same AI as the players.

 

Bolster in PvP does not close the massive gear cap between tier 1 and tier 4, where the focused toon can be killed before the 4 sec hard stun is over.

 

But all this is just a theory and conjecture.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Tarbuch
typo

[Threjyan]

Are you serious? What class do you play?

 

madness sorc

[Threjyan]

I wish they finish what they are doing right now "balancing dpsers specs".

 

mDPS like operatives, marauders, deception assassin must be nerfed in 5.4

 

5.4 will prolly bring nerfs but for you i think u wanted 5.4 to have happened already yesterday

[masterceil]

5.4 will prolly bring nerfs but for you i think u wanted 5.4 to have happened already yesterday

 

I main a Ruffian... I know nerfs are likely to come in August, I just hope it's a light tap to bring us down to Melee Sustained target and not a smash with a sledgehammer to drop us down to Melee Burst or Ranged Burst levels

[Khiriath]

I main a Ruffian... I know nerfs are likely to come in August, I just hope it's a light tap to bring us down to Melee Sustained target and not a smash with a sledgehammer to drop us down to Melee Burst or Ranged Burst levels

 

When has it ever been a "light tap" from BW?

 

Truth be told some of the DOT MDPS classes are performing more than 10-15% above other DOT MDPS classes, most specifically 10-15% above Hatred Assassin and Pyrotech PT that were supposed to have been buffed up to their Target Number TM in 5.3, so I think it's going to be far more than a light tap, those other classes are going to have to be brought down to the Target Number TM.

[masterceil]

When has it ever been a "light tap" from BW?

 

Truth be told some of the DOT MDPS classes are performing more than 10-15% above other DOT MDPS classes, most specifically 10-15% above Hatred Assassin and Pyrotech PT that were supposed to have been buffed up to their Target Number TM in 5.3, so I think it's going to be far more than a light tap, those other classes are going to have to be brought down to the Target Number TM.

 

Well if the 'target' DPS is 9.6k as I've heard floated about, we should be able to push just over 10k at Melee Sustained target. Right now, there are some lucky 11k parses up. The lowest Ruffian/Lethality parse on a 2.5m dummy before the next spec (an Anni Mara) is at about 10.6k - top Ruff/Leth is just over 11k. I'm fully expecting a 600-1k DPS drop in BiS gear.

 

I can do over 9.6k m'self in my 242ish gear. Hope I can still break 9k if we do get nerfed

[Exly]

Umm.. NO

 

Mercs defensive cool downs were the issue.

 

The devs went on a spree no one asked for.

 

PvP is actually now worse because many non-merc classes were dependent on sorc heals to kill mercs.

 

Don't blame PvP for a dev team that ran amuck.

 

Just because they didn't do what the PvP crowd wanted them to do does not mean that the nerfs were not due to requests from PvPer's. They took the wrong approach to the problem, and will probably follow it up with more nerfs to survivability, but the connection to PvP is clearly there for everyone to see.

[Valauntapall]

To be perfectly honest I'm appalled to see people saying that a sorc/heal don't get out of energy!! THIS IS INSANE! Clearly these are the people that NEVER played a sorc/healer because it does not matter if it is PVP or Operations if you get to a bossfight as a sorc/heal you will get out of energy and pretty fast and then you stand there running around trying to avoid being crushed because your LS damage is pathetic and your defense(Static barrier now demoted) does not do you much good.... and just to remind the mercs/mandos that say the sorcs have the upper hand you are forgetting that WE HAVE NO ARMOR!!!! Without static barrier and our heals we are dead in five seconds against any heavy armor foe so if you don't know what is like to play sorc/sage/heal just shut the **** up ok!!

[foxxycandy]

Just revert sages/sorcs to 4.0 patch stats. They are FINE that way. Completely fine. I am CONSTANTLY out of mana and can't do ****. Maybe that's because I actually do my damn job and know what I'm doing. Recharging doesn't help worth ****. And not only that, but the DPS do nada. They are pointless to play.

[ivanhedgehog]

Umm.. NO

 

Mercs defensive cool downs were the issue.

 

The devs went on a spree no one asked for.

 

PvP is actually now worse because many non-merc classes were dependent on sorc heals to kill mercs.

 

Don't blame PvP for a dev team that ran amuck.

 

5.4 will be the pvp nerf fest. Many of the utilities dont do anything against op bosses. They are going to nuke merc utilities and a bunch of others is what I am thinking. Justified or not, they will go way overboard. They should have buffed seer/sorc healer dps to make up for their lack of healing and defenses. They need to have something to fall back on. since they can no longer "heal to full and make them pay"

[Transcendent]

I don't need to be the most powerful class in game. However, I do want the classes that I like to play to be able to put out the necessary damage to clear content without having to be horribly over geared.

 

This right here. This is why I really wish we went back to pre-4.0 where we could out-level the content, instead of assuming that all the players can clear the content with the "target dps and hps" with specific gear based purely on numbers and theoretical models of what each class is supposed to be performing at.

 

It used to be nice to be able to go into content over-levelled and not be the weak point in the raid group, as well as being able to clear the content that has been tuned for the top 5% of players, while ignoring the other 95% of players. 4.0 killed that fun, 5.0 keeps just hammering the same thing down players throats.

[Ottoattack]

I am late to this party. There are 4 primary areas for dps and healing class balance:

 

Damage and healing: burst/sustained/AOE

Mobility: in combat, cast vs instant, range vs melee and movement speed (and buffs related to it)

Survivability: Damage reduction, damage avoidance and healing DCDs.

Utility: Group buffs and CC

 

I would say that all 4 areas have equal importance. BW has only worked on 8 disciplines and on one area in these disciplines. You guys did an overall minuscule change in 5.3 that ignored vast majority of the feedback and clear glaring issues. What else is left to provide feedback for?

 

Ya, I hear when you say "target dps/heals." It means close to nothing in the grand scheme of overall balance. Then you BW devs seem to be doing the usual, running around the bush. Class A has survivability or mobility problem, lets change something else and see if it fixes it. YOU CANNOT FIX SURVIVIBILITY, MOBILITY OR UTILITY ISSUE BY BUFFING OR NERFING DPS OUTPUT. Please put this on the top of the combat team work computers. But of course output is easy to measure. The rest requires through monitoring. How much monitoring (if any) is done?

 

I dare the dev team to show us out of the 2,000 sorc in group ranked how many play lightning and what is the winning percentage. I can say that for at least 6-7 different disciplines. You want feedback? Indicate to us the you do any form of monitoring and not doing class balance based on dummy parses and form QQ, so I know there is something to discuss.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Ottoattack

[robertthebard]

Hey folks,

 

One of the topics we have seen come up a bit in the past couple of weeks is all of your feedback regarding Class changes and what is happening with it. We understand we have not kept you updated on the threads where we posted the Class changes so we want to talk through what happens next and how we will use your feedback.

 

For a multitude of reasons, Class balance is one of the most challenging communication topics. We dislike having to nerf a Class as much as you do, but sometimes we have to do it for the overall health of our game (as we talked about in our "How Class Balance Happens” thread). We understand that no one ever likes to see the effectiveness of their Class reduced. It can change the way you play, take enjoyment out of playing that Class, and make you feel slighted if you believe the changes happened because of another type of gameplay (PvE or PvP) which you don't even participate in. We are very sensitive to all of these things.

 

We knew Class changes were a top priority, so we provided insight about how we intended to balance all Classes ahead of next week’s patch. Since we took so long to make changes after the release of KOTET (5.0), we had quite a few big changes to make, and that’s what you’ve been reading the last few weeks. It is going to be rough for some Disciplines as they are way over target, but it is important that we bring them in line. Additionally, we may have missed the mark with some of the changes and if we went too far or not far enough, you can expect to see additional adjustments in the future. Going forward, it is our intent to stay on top of Class balance so changes will be less severe/sweeping than they are in 5.3 and the upcoming 5.4 patch in August.

 

Let's get a little more specific! The following list is not comprehensive, but here is some of the key feedback we have read coming out of the Class change posts:

• Arsenal/Gunnery needed survivability/utility nerfs, not DPS - As we said in the balance thread, we want to get damage targets in line first before we touch too much utility. They did get a slight nerf to survivability in 5.3, and we will monitor both their damage and ability to stay alive going forward.
  
• Corruption/Seer nerfs went too far and may also negatively impact DPS - Admittedly those two Disciplines were substantially overperforming and will receive the most significant nerfs in 5.3. But, we will watch their performance closely and make changes if we’ve gone too far. The same is true of the impact on "Sorc/Sage bubble" for DPS. We’ll change it or give them other defensive options to compensate if needed.
  
• Madness/Balance buffs are nice but they are still Force negative! - Beyond the changes already listed, they are receiving a buff to their Force regeneration to no longer be rotationally negative. We have doubled the effect of Sith Efficacy / Psychic Barrier so that each channel of Force Lightning / Telekinetic Throw will restore 8% of total Force (minus the cost). To be clear, that’s a net of +3 per tick of damage or +12 total Force per channel, not including the ongoing passive Force regeneration that also occurs during the channel.

 

When we start talking about 5.4 changes, we will work to do better in keeping the conversation alive around Class balance. This way we can make sure everyone has a clear understanding of all concerns/feedback going into the update.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

There is no maybe. DPS on Corruption/Seer, along with base survivability took a big hit. I imagine there are some that are really happy about that, but after my experiences in a basic H2 quest on Balmorra in full 228s, I'm having nightmares about things like Visions in the Dark. Thanks? Did you guys take these changes anywhere but training dummies to see what kind of effect it was going to have in design intent solo content?

[BraverDre]

I am late to this party. There are 4 primary areas for dps and healing class balance:

 

Damage and healing: burst/sustained/AOE

Mobility: in combat, cast vs instant, range vs melee and movement speed (and buffs related to it)

Survivability: Damage reduction, damage avoidance and healing DCDs.

Utility: Group buffs and CC

 

I would say that all 4 areas have equal importance. BW has only worked on 8 disciplines and on one area in these disciplines. You guys did an overall minuscule change in 5.3 that ignored vast majority of the feedback and clear glaring issues. What else is left to provide feedback for?

 

Ya, I hear when you say "target dps/heals." It means close to nothing in the grand scheme of overall balance. Then you BW devs seem to be doing the usual, running around the bush. Class A has survivability or mobility problem, lets change something else and see if it fixes it. YOU CANNOT FIX SURVIVIBILITY, MOBILITY OR UTILITY ISSUE BY BUFFING OR NERFING DPS OUTPUT. Please put this on the top of the combat team work computers. But of course output is easy to measure. The rest requires through monitoring. How much monitoring (if any) is done?

 

I dare the dev team to show us out of the 2,000 sorc in group ranked how many play lightning and what is the winning percentage. I can say that for at least 6-7 different disciplines. You want feedback? Indicate to us the you do any form of monitoring and not doing class balance based on dummy parses and form QQ, so I know there is something to discuss.

 

yeap if they ignore us once more they will lose a lot of players since most of guild started playing other games just because of a stupid balance of Bioware team

[BraverDre]

5.4 will prolly bring nerfs but for you i think u wanted 5.4 to have happened already yesterday

 

hahah u're right) can't wait much longer I've been maining my madness sorc and I refused to reroll in 5.0 ... If they don't balance classes on weekly bases, a lot people will lose interest and leave the game. So many guilds left the game since 5.0... because of their late updates.. 5.2 had to happen in january. that would save so much time and money.

Edited July 15, 2017 by BraverDre

[Icykill_]

madness sorc

 

None of those other classes you mentioned need a nerf

[Icykill_]

Just because they didn't do what the PvP crowd wanted them to do does not mean that the nerfs were not due to requests from PvPer's. They took the wrong approach to the problem, and will probably follow it up with more nerfs to survivability, but the connection to PvP is clearly there for everyone to see.

 

And your point is?

[Exly]

And your point is?

 

The team as BioWare will hear things like nerf Mercs, and then go about doing that without understanding the problem, and will then create new problems, and never address the real issue. In this case, the real issue is Merc survivability. When they heard nerf Mercs, they devised a plan to do that, but they did not address the issue.

 

It is also obvious from -eric's post that they later realized that what people (pvpers) were asking they had already made up their minds to nerf dps, and now PvE is suffering because BioWare did the wrong thing.

 

We have seen this in the past too. People wanted more story, and at the time story meant class stories like those that they enjoyed when leveling their characters from 1 to 50. BioWare heard that request, and the led them to stop developing group content to bring us one story line for all classes with KotFE and KotET.

 

Then there is the issue with companions. People asked for more new companions. They liked the ones that they had, and enjoyed the way they got to know them through the original story, and they wanted more of that. BioWare heard that too, and then took away our companions, and then went overboard on giving us generic and totally uninteresting companions, and now it's two years later and people are still waiting for some of their original companions to return.

 

The point is that there is no doubt that BioWare does hear what we say, but when they do respond and act on what they hear their is a huge disconnect between what ask for and what we get. In this case when PvPers asked for nerfs, BioWare responded, but did not give them what they asked for this time either.

[SilverStarSeaker]

The team as BioWare will hear things like nerf Mercs, and then go about doing that without understanding the problem, and will then create new problems, and never address the real issue. In this case, the real issue is Merc survivability. When they heard nerf Mercs, they devised a plan to do that, but they did not address the issue.

 

It is also obvious from -eric's post that they later realized that what people (pvpers) were asking they had already made up their minds to nerf dps, and now PvE is suffering because BioWare did the wrong thing.

 

We have seen this in the past too. People wanted more story, and at the time story meant class stories like those that they enjoyed when leveling their characters from 1 to 50. BioWare heard that request, and the led them to stop developing group content to bring us one story line for all classes with KotFE and KotET.

 

Then there is the issue with companions. People asked for more new companions. They liked the ones that they had, and enjoyed the way they got to know them through the original story, and they wanted more of that. BioWare heard that too, and then took away our companions, and then went overboard on giving us generic and totally uninteresting companions, and now it's two years later and people are still waiting for some of their original companions to return.

 

The point is that there is no doubt that BioWare does hear what we say, but when they do respond and act on what they hear their is a huge disconnect between what ask for and what we get. In this case when PvPers asked for nerfs, BioWare responded, but did not give them what they asked for this time either.

 

Merc dps nerf is fine and was needed lol. Now we just need to sort out those utilities.

[Exly]

Merc dps nerf is fine and was needed lol. Now we just need to sort out those utilities.

.

 

OMG you're right. Being as useless as a lightning sorc or marksman sniper in PvE is fine. I think that it is so fine that they should nerf all advance classes dps to the same fine level. Lol.

 

P.s. Merc dps was the third from the bottom in actual raid situations according to data collected by Starparse (source). If nerfing their dps was fine, then it would be fine to nerf juggernauts, assassins, operatives, snipers, and marauders dps too since all five of those classes already over perform mercs in actual boss fights.

Edited July 15, 2017 by Exly

[AlrikFassbauer]

or marksman sniper in PvE is fine.

 

I did do a few FPs with guild members a few days ago (I'm new to this guild, but people know me there for quite some time now, since I prefer to be independent). I didn't contribute much. Both melee DDs were always so much faster in Czerka Labs, for example, that they had finished before I could contribute.

 

I do know that I have bad gear, but I didn't expect to be THAT bad. Well, now I prefer to play alone again.

[Toraak]

the current changes definitely won't mean "melee dps are far surpassing rdps".

 

for high level pve, melee generally have far more downtime due to target switches, movement and avoiding mechanics. "better armor and mitigation" won't help in most high level pve content if you're a melee standing where you're not meant to. giving them a bonus makes sense, the question is how much. if your mdps are "far surpassing" your rdps feel free to send your stats over a large number of fights to the devs and i'm sure they'll consider your feedback.

as for pvp, yeah melee rely on a bit of extra mitigation and dps because they can't use range as an advantage and are more limited in los options. that's the whole point in being *ranged*. if you're a ranged player constantly getting caught by melee, you could think more about your positioning, kiting or escapes. maybe change utilities.

 

I call nonsense to target switching. Most groups I've seen Melee DPS get to tunnel the boss, when the rdps have to take care of add duty (and target swapping). This increases the Melee classes DPS in the fight,

Edited July 15, 2017 by Toraak

[Elitestartrooper]

I agree that melee should be higher dps then ranged, really people have no understanding of star wars or the game if they disagree with this notion:

 

1. PvE: Most bosses in FP/OPs have area damage around them, along with ground targeting. A melee toon if the enemy is in a targeted area, must go in to take the damage or wait and not do any damage. While ranged can shoot from any where to continue a constant damage output, even if area damage targets them they can move and still do the attacks.

 

2. PvP: Large amount of abilities put a slow or throw or stun, this ONLY effects melee players that have one charge/leap ability and maybe a pull. Ranged kite while the defensive abilties besides stun does not effect them, if you out a slow on a trooper he/she will stand in one spot and shoot you, you throw them and they just shoot you from there.

 

....ranged in 99% of situations can deal out a constant undisturbed DPS output, melee can not and when they can it usually puts them into aoe effects that cause massive damage to them.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I disagree with the Nerf healer, then nerf everyone else. Unless the Sorc/Sage got nerfed twice as much as the ranged that were nerfed because it only balanced returned them to the same unequal balance at just a lower tier of healing/damage.

 

...Knight zen nerf, that it no longer gives focus, I thought was a big nerf I think on them. It seems just shadow/sin got the help this update.

[robertthebard]

I agree that melee should be higher dps then ranged, really people have no understanding of star wars or the game if they disagree with this notion:

 

1. PvE: Most bosses in FP/OPs have area damage around them, along with ground targeting. A melee toon if the enemy is in a targeted area, must go in to take the damage or wait and not do any damage. While ranged can shoot from any where to continue a constant damage output, even if area damage targets them they can move and still do the attacks.

 

Gasp, surely they're not expected to L2P in regards to getting out of the circles. What a shock.

 

2. PvP: Large amount of abilities put a slow or throw or stun, this ONLY effects melee players that have one charge/leap ability and maybe a pull. Ranged kite while the defensive abilties besides stun does not effect them, if you out a slow on a trooper he/she will stand in one spot and shoot you, you throw them and they just shoot you from there.

 

....ranged in 99% of situations can deal out a constant undisturbed DPS output, melee can not and when they can it usually puts them into aoe effects that cause massive damage to them.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I disagree with the Nerf healer, then nerf everyone else. Unless the Sorc/Sage got nerfed twice as much as the ranged that were nerfed because it only balanced returned them to the same unequal balance at just a lower tier of healing/damage.

 

...Knight zen nerf, that it no longer gives focus, I thought was a big nerf I think on them. It seems just shadow/sin got the help this update.