Class Change Feedback in 5.3 and 5.4

[Exly]

Hi Eric and Keith,

 

In my personal opinion for class balancing to be hit right, every dps class should be able to produce sufficient actual output to clear all PvE content. I think we all know that HM Styrak is one of the greatest DPS checks in the game. When 5.0 dropped gear rating for HM(Vet) ops was 230. Using the tactic of having only one tank and your off tank switching to dps gear and spec, your 5 DPS still need to put out 7.2k actual DPS to down this boss within the enrage timer.

 

That isn't theoretical DPS or what is possible on a dummy, that is actual DPS which requires time off target to adjust to boss mechanics, and things like the kell dragon going into his spin and taking significantly less damage. Does your "Target DPS" allow for each and ever DPS spec to output the needed 7.2k DPS actual in the recommended 230 gear? If not, then nerfs are not called for, but rather buffs(Here's a hint, there are some classes such as Lightening Sorc and Markmanship sniper that struggle for that even in 248 gear).

 

I have heard and understand your argument that if you buff all DPS to be equal to the higher outputs it will make PvP kills too fast. Honestly what we are seeing and some of us are actually feeling is the difficulty of balancing both PvP and PvE and balancing them together. However, if you want this game to work, then you either have to balance so that every spec can do the necessary dmg in the recommended gear, separate PvP and PvE balancing(like maybe bring back PvP gear) or start nerfing ops bosses so that even with the nerfs, every spec can still reach the necessary DPS at the recommended gear levels.

 

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.

 

What you have said here is so obvious that it should not have to be said, but unfortunately there is a disconnect between the target dps that is built on dev bias and belief, and actual in game results.

 

Like you, I would rather see them try to balance advance classes based on actual in game results instead using thier theoretical 'time on target' based approach. Unfortunately, based on there responses that simply repeat that they have a method, and they are sticking to it, I think that they are to invested and to proud of their approach to change their methods, and we are stuck with what they are willing give us.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Exly

[Exly]

In most MMOs... balance is in fact hard to do in a balanced way that most players will accept without retort. In this context... trying to balance is by definition insane because you will never get any thing close to unanimous agreement about balance by the player base, and the armchair attacks will always hit a studio.... no matter what.

 

In my years of playing MMOs... the balance exercises that have worked best are phased, incremental, measured, and readjusted style to balance. Something that they actually appear to be trying to do this time around. So I think it is premature to condemn it until we see at least two cycles in the process. It certainly appears to be more thoughtful and focused then past balance changes where they have typically done major revamps and then released them into the wild and have to go back and do major rework once they saw the carnage.

 

I really appreciated the approach that this game used toward balance leading up to patch 3.3. They told us what changes they planned on making, put those changes up on the pts for us to try out, and listened to our feedback to tweak the changes before they went live. If they did something like that this time I would appreciate that as well.

 

Unfortunately they didn't, and they are acting more dictatorial with the upcoming changes. Now I know that this is their game to develop, and they can be dictatorial if they want to be, but I am not happy with what they are doing, or with some of the changes that they are making.

[Exly]

I really hope you're right, I really do.. but all evidence, especially their methodology on how they balance points to a clust-F ... especially when you consider that the issues with the classes people have been telling them about since January have been essentially ignored. On top of that they are nerfing things that aren't an issue and don't need to be nerfered... but at the same time totally ignoring things that need a desperate buff.

 

My point is they have been following this methodology on "how to balance" for 5 years. Even if they do small incremental adjustments, it won't be correct because it's not what they doing, it's how they are doing it based on a flawed process that balance isn't based on other classes and is done "parsing" on dummies that don't hit back and don't use defensive abilities to negate the dps.

 

So as Albert Einstein said, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

 

I can't see this being any different to every other time they've tried to balance using this same methodology. They may have the best intentions to get it right, but they need to change their approach if it is to work properly.

 

Their approach made sense when they first launched the game, and before they had amassed so much data on actual game play. It would even make sense if they were introducing new advance classes to play to use their method as a starting point to use until they could gather enough data from actual in game to balance them.

 

The thing is that now they have the data and they are not using it to make wise decisions like they should be. Instead they are sticking to the method that they probably used to balance classes leading into 5.0, and look how good that turned out for them.

 

Einstein was a smart guy. It's too bad that we aren't all smart enough to learn from what he had to say.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

parses say that you are wrong. they need to balance pvp separately so as to not break pve.

 

You don't parse in PVP. Any parses you are referring too are from PVE. PVE and PVP are totally separate beasts.

[ivanhedgehog]

Not to put myself as a template but when using starparse for example which I have used a fair bit, my hps and ehps were not particularly higher than other healer classes. Strictly speaking operations here, so I have a tendency to believe him on this.

 

As far as PvP is concerned the sorc/sage healer seems to have performed rather well by comparison, but I'm not sure if that's because of the healing output or the set of utilities, dcd's and such that make them perform so much better in PvP, because they tend to be a lot more effective in PvP than operations generally, at least from my experience.

 

So, I really wonder if the people who say the sorc is so op are really specifically referring to PvP.

 

I am thinking they are referring to a sorc healer that is guarded and has someone else healing them. Of course you cant kill them solo. But then we seem to be seeing a subset of pvpers that only want to see big kill numbers, they dont care about anything else and if they could get rid of healers all together, they would.

[ivanhedgehog]

What you have said here is so obvious that it should not have to be said, but unfortunately there is a disconnect between the target dps that is built on dev bias and belief, and actual in game results.

 

Like you, I would rather see them try to balance advance classes based on actual in game results instead using thier theoretical 'time on target' based approach. Unfortunately, based on there responses that simply repeat that they have a method, and they are sticking to it, I think that they are to invested and to proud of their approach to change their methods, and we are stuck with what they are willing give us.

 

I do have to wonder, in 6 months when melee dps are far surpassing rdps, will they adjust? Or will they cling to the idea that melee dps is so hard it must still be given a handicap? Their whole balancing scheme is based on the idea that melee truly have it harder, even with better armor and mitigation. With the changes to make their attack instantaneous, is this still true?

[DanNV]

I do have to wonder, in 6 months when melee dps are far surpassing rdps, will they adjust? Or will they cling to the idea that melee dps is so hard it must still be given a handicap? Their whole balancing scheme is based on the idea that melee truly have it harder, even with better armor and mitigation. With the changes to make their attack instantaneous, is this still true?

 

How many people will still be here by then? How many are going to look at the CXP grind and decide it's not worth it and go find something more fun to do?

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

I do have to wonder, in 6 months when melee dps are far surpassing rdps, will they adjust? Or will they cling to the idea that melee dps is so hard it must still be given a handicap? Their whole balancing scheme is based on the idea that melee truly have it harder, even with better armor and mitigation. With the changes to make their attack instantaneous, is this still true?

 

Yeah, good point. Let's leave Mercs and Snipers as they are now, because they haven't been OP as Fux for the last 8 months.

 

Good thinking. With Melee Over performing as they are, good that we have people to point out the obvious.

 

Buff Mercs and Snipers. Melee have been far too strong since 5.0.

 

Better armor and mitigation than mercs and snipers? Really?

 

Marauder and Jugg had one attack that had cast made instant, ravage and the damage got nerfed to hell. Much rather have the cast back and have the damage back.

 

Mercs need at least 5 lives, the 3 they have now just aren't cutting it against classes with little to no self heals.

Give snipers some more control over melee while you're at it, they just aren't able to keep melee from attacking them a full 100% of the time. Up their self heals too, because ranged DPS need self heals in addition to their tank DCDs.

 

5.3 hasn't even happened yet, PT and Assassin had one spec each that got a small buff, marauder, jugg didn't get touched, and nerfing mdps is already being talked about, before anything has even happened yet. heh. Unreal.

Edited July 10, 2017 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[Stellarcrusade]

If the healers of any class spec are not able to heal their group and themselves at the same time in PVP or PVE to an adequate degree, there is going to be some DPS specs suffering greatly for it. Obviously it won't be Mercs or Snipers, they'll be just as retardedly OP defensive wise as they ever were, but Juggs, PTs, Maras, and Assy's, we're about to take a turn for the worse I fear in PVP.

 

People who don't think the healing nerf is going to have a large effect on a players who aren't even healers are about to have a rude awakening in the next few days.

 

Not to much heals from healers going on, too much heals from DPS specs going on, and they're going to keep on going in. Mercs and Snipers aren't about to get worse in PVP, they're about to get better because the other DPS are going to be dieing a lot more easier with the lack of heals from healers, and they aren't.

 

You can't DPS when you're dead. And when you have three lives you'll still do more DPS even with slightly less DPS than DPS who aren't walking Trinities.

 

Exactly. This class-balance-round of nerfs, what it really does is make Mercs and Snipers MORE POWERFUL, and it gives ALL OTHER CLASSES LESS REASON TO PLAY. Do you think this was their intention?

 

The wars had too many other classes when the goal is to have 100% mercs and snipers I guess.

[themachinemann]

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

 

cheers for reading through all the clutter of comments Eric, you hit the nail on the head with these points. While the changes to arsenal/gunnery are good for keeping it in line with target dps, the utilities need the change more as they present a huge imbalance in regs and s-r which, to be fair, make up the huge majority of pvp population.

I agree with you on the sorc change; lets wait and see the actual dynamic in 5.3 and go from there. good call.

Great feedback and action on the madness/balance issue. cheers

[Tsillah]

I am thinking they are referring to a sorc healer that is guarded and has someone else healing them. Of course you cant kill them solo. But then we seem to be seeing a subset of pvpers that only want to see big kill numbers, they dont care about anything else and if they could get rid of healers all together, they would.

 

Yeah that's what I was thinking also. That's why I could never understand their move to make guard available to the DPS trees as well. It is a very powerful combination.

 

It's just that whenever I see people complaining about the sorc healers, it's generally PvP and it's about their inability to kill them. The irony is that their actual healing output itself is not the key to their success in PvP. It's the combination of dcd's, utilities, mobility and yes things like being guarded that make them unkillable for some but they focus around the heals which is not the issue.

 

I'm not a big PvP buff, especially in SWTOR but I can do some decent healing there, when allowed. I don't always get a guard, even when there's plenty of people with guards in the team lol. And when I would run into a team that had a clue, a couple of people could shut me down and kill me quickly in my light armour, because it only takes two with burst damage and a few stuns to kill a sorc or sage who can't actually cast any skills for a few seconds and dies just as quickly then, especially if the opening stun comes from stealth.

 

We'll see how many people will like these changes but if it pushes out more players before they fix it again, they can't say they weren't warned.

[themachinemann]

I do have to wonder, in 6 months when melee dps are far surpassing rdps, will they adjust? Or will they cling to the idea that melee dps is so hard it must still be given a handicap? Their whole balancing scheme is based on the idea that melee truly have it harder, even with better armor and mitigation. With the changes to make their attack instantaneous, is this still true?

 

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.

[KendraP]

Yeah, good point. Let's leave Mercs and Snipers as they are now, because they haven't been OP as Fux for the last 8 months.

 

Good thinking. With Melee Over performing as they are, good that we have people to point out the obvious.

 

Buff Mercs and Snipers. Melee have been far too strong since 5.0.

 

Better armor and mitigation than mercs and snipers? Really?

 

Marauder and Jugg had one attack that had cast made instant, ravage and the damage got nerfed to hell. Much rather have the cast back and have the damage back.

 

Mercs need at least 5 lives, the 3 they have now just aren't cutting it against classes with little to no self heals.

Give snipers some more control over melee while you're at it, they just aren't able to keep melee from attacking them a full 100% of the time. Up their self heals too, because ranged DPS need self heals in addition to their tank DCDs.

 

5.3 hasn't even happened yet, PT and Assassin had one spec each that got a small buff, marauder, jugg didn't get touched, and nerfing mdps is already being talked about, before anything has even happened yet. heh. Unreal.

 

Haha I enjoyed reading this. Yes please nerf my Vigi guardian damage because it's so op bring right around the average. And while you're at it, nerf our DCDs too because dps guardians don't die fast enough as it is.

 

Ok ranting over. More seriously, I can see why melee should theoretically have a slight dps advantage. Note that they clump burst melee and ranged sustained together also. The real question that should be asked is this: is their spread from highest to lowest too much? And I wouldn't know the answer to that question since I am only doing hm progression and pvp.

 

In my personal opinion you should be able to complete any operation with any mix of classes. Yes there will be fights thst make some set ups more difficult. But there should be no cases of "no *class* dps here they only pull xxxx dps and at least yyyy dps is needed". If you're good at PT/VG/sorc/sage dps you should be able to make the dps check. If you can't then a balance is needed. I don't play those classes as dps (I have a VG tank and a healing sage).

[Khiriath]

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.

 

All valid points. However, I still contend that the overall model of target DPS is broken. Let's look at the current "theoretical possibles"

https://torcommunity.com/guides/miscellaneous/class-rankings

 

Again referencing Styrak Vet(HM). With 5dps you need to put out 7.2k each. If you go in as the op is intended with two tanks and 4dps you are looking at over 8k dps to clear the raid.

 

You are supposed to be able to achieve that in 230 gear. However, based on torcommunity class rankings, and the theoretical possible DPS assuming BIS gear and a perfect rotation, there are some classes that are hard pressed to reach that even in 248 gear. You factor in down time, and mechanic induced DPS reductions(such as the Kell Dragon spinning) and I would argue that at least 2 of the ranged classes can't possibly hit the necessary DPS target to clear the raid, for sure not in the recommended gear, and probably not in 248 bis gear.

 

I'm not saying that balancing of classes doesn't have to happen, there is definitely some imbalance here. However, my contention is that any balance should ensure that the PvE content can be cleared by all classes/specs in the intended gear and while playing with the intended group makeup of 2T 4D 2H.

 

Now we can go with all these nerfs(which will take even more classes/specs) out of that ability range. We could go with buffs, though that idea supposedly would damage PvP as it would cause PvP kills to happen too quickly. So right now we are being forced into a model that breaks endgame PvE to balance PvP. Personally I think PvE and PvP need to be balanced separately, and I think that BW needs to look at their endgame PvE content and whether it can be cleared by all specs with the recommended gear and the recommended group make up. Once those things are brought in order, we can begin talking about nerfs and buffs.

 

Right now however, they just come off as clueless as to what is actually going on in game.

[Khiriath]

In my personal opinion you should be able to complete any operation with any mix of classes. Yes there will be fights thst make some set ups more difficult. But there should be no cases of "no *class* dps here they only pull xxxx dps and at least yyyy dps is needed". If you're good at PT/VG/sorc/sage dps you should be able to make the dps check. If you can't then a balance is needed. I don't play those classes as dps (I have a VG tank and a healing sage).

 

In recommended gear many can't, there are some that can't even in BiS gear. With the incoming nerfs, more will be put into the can't category. It is really just that simple.

 

Some will be dropped into "a really skilled player in BiS gear can still give sufficient output to clear Vet(HM)" however, MM(NiM) will be moved out of reach of all but a few classes/specs. It is there in the numbers, and it is the elephant in the room that BW doesn't want to address because with the removal of PvP gear, they have tied PvP and PvE balancing together in a way that is detrimental for them both.

[KendraP]

In recommended gear many can't, there are some that can't even in BiS gear. With the incoming nerfs, more will be put into the can't category. It is really just that simple.

 

Some will be dropped into "a really skilled player in BiS gear can still give sufficient output to clear Vet(HM)" however, MM(NiM) will be moved out of reach of all but a few classes/specs. It is there in the numbers, and it is the elephant in the room that BW doesn't want to address because with the removal of PvP gear, they have tied PvP and PvE balancing together in a way that is detrimental for them both.

 

Then perhaps we do have a case of the theoretical swing is too large between top and bottom and needs to be shrunk a bit. Perhaps it's not coincidental thst I don't see dps sages (and with the healing sage nerf we'll see what happens there, glad my main healer is a scoundrel).

 

Side note perhaps: this is also why I'm happy my chosen dps class (vigi guardian) is in the middle. There is a tendency for a class to over perform for long periods of time, then be stuck with a nerf hammer. Perhaps this is the development team trying what we have been requesting and doing smaller changes more often. We shall see soon i suppose, at any rate.

 

The greater communication is greatly appreciated, hopefully despite the fact that many of these threads devolve into name calling and finger pointing does not detract the devs from finding the actual issues. There is gold amongst the garbage if you will.

[supertimtaf]

The greater communication is greatly appreciated, hopefully despite the fact that many of these threads devolve into name calling and finger pointing does not detract the devs from finding the actual issues. There is gold amongst the garbage if you will.

 

This is just my point of view, but... "Greater communication".

For now, they have been saying what they were gonna change... "Your feedback is more than welcome !"

I'm still waiting for their answer on the global reaction on this post. And on every other class changes post.

You can't call this "communication" if there isn't an answer from both sides. Let's hope we'll see soon some message from Keith or Eric about community feedback...

And more than "we're gonna talk about it later, don't worry guys".

[realleaftea]

Hey folks, [...]

 

• 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.

Just limit the trigger rate of both Trauma Regulators and Responsive Safeguard to once per second. This would make both skills more comparable to other defensive skills and would remove the silly - "the merc gets 4 stacks if your skill hits 4 times per use" issue. Everything should be much better with such a simple change. But could it be that this class balance is done by non-developers who can't add such a simple fix to the corresponding file?

 

• 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.

The impact on "Sorc/Sage bubble" for DPS wasn't that much about Seer/Corruption. But feel free compensate every stealth class (as well as Marauders) for their 'loss of DPS' while hidden. Alternatively, feel free to cause a 'DPS loss' for every other class by giving them all a 8s immunity bubble (like Sawbone Scoundrels / Medicine Operatives)

 

• 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.

Sure, if you use a base cost of 40 force points, substract 10% (= 4pts) via Inner Strength / Electric Induction and then substract the 48 force points regenerated via Psychic Barrier / Sith Efficacy , you achieve the -12 pts overall cost.

 

But that's not even the point!

 

It's about the net gain compared to the current situation: To let the skill restore 8% of total force per use results in a net gain of +24 force points per use compared to what it is right now.. And due to the fact that Telekinetic Throw // Force Lightning is used quite often, it's way too much.

 

A Telekinetic Throw / Force Lightning already has a slightly negative (-4 pts total) cost right now. After this change it will regen. 28pts in total (-12 pts plus a 16pts base regeneration rate that scales with alacrity). I.e. the skill will be strictly better than a Consuming Darkness! So there was absolutely no need to make it better. The only problematic skill was this one:

 

Afflction

35 cost

-3 cost reduction

-12 base regen

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

20 total

 

But I guess, to lower the base cost of Weaken Mind / Affliction from 35 to 20 (or even 15) was too nuch to ask for, right?

Edited July 10, 2017 by realleaftea

[Exly]

Yeah, good point. Let's leave Mercs and Snipers as they are now, because they haven't been OP as Fux for the last 8 months.

 

Good thinking. With Melee Over performing as they are, good that we have people to point out the obvious.

 

Buff Mercs and Snipers. Melee have been far too strong since 5.0.

 

Better armor and mitigation than mercs and snipers? Really?

 

Marauder and Jugg had one attack that had cast made instant, ravage and the damage got nerfed to hell. Much rather have the cast back and have the damage back.

 

Mercs need at least 5 lives, the 3 they have now just aren't cutting it against classes with little to no self heals.

Give snipers some more control over melee while you're at it, they just aren't able to keep melee from attacking them a full 100% of the time. Up their self heals too, because ranged DPS need self heals in addition to their tank DCDs.

 

5.3 hasn't even happened yet, PT and Assassin had one spec each that got a small buff, marauder, jugg didn't get touched, and nerfing mdps is already being talked about, before anything has even happened yet. heh. Unreal.

 

The problem is that you seem to be looking at the game from a PvP perspective, and the truth is that you are right about things like the survivability of Mercs in PvP.

 

The thing is though that they did nothing to address the problem, and instead they nerfed damage output on a spec that is already underperforming 5 other advance classes in actual game play (according to data collected by Starparse link).

 

So maybe you can tell me why you think it is a good idea to nerf the dps of any advance class that is already underperforming other advance classes (including assassins, operatives, marauders, and juggernauts) in actual game play.

[Stellarcrusade]

Justifying sorc healers being OP by classifying the other 2 healers as mere "healer-hybrids". My m8s in discord say thanks for the laugh m8.

 

Maybe you need to wake up to reality, perhaps you are new to MMOs, but here's news for you: Every MMO (with healers) has 1 true healer class that is better at healing than other healers, but typically cannot do much else. Welcome to MMOs, after you have played a few weeks you'll learn how MMOs work.

[Foambreaker]

So basically this is just an excuse thread, you are publishing the changes AS IS, tomorrow. Edited July 10, 2017 by Foambreaker

[Foambreaker]

Ok, we got all that before, I think. Thanks for explaining in detail.

 

My complaint here is, What about the other classes that are not receiving a much deserved NERF in 5.3, like Mara (at least carnage), Operative (at least lethality) and Assassin Deception, for instance, all of them are way above their DPS Target (lethality reach 10% above dps target where it should be "only" 5%) and gonna stay that way in 5.3, doing much more dps than everyone else now. One would think they should also be priority since are doing, like all the others that will be nerfed, above their dps target.

Does that seems fair to you? Why aren't they receiving a nerf in 5.3 too? And more importantly, WHEN will these classes/builds see this nerf?

Coincidentally, they are all MDPS...

 

lol, merc wants everyone nerfed.

[Janglor]

There's a difference between EHPS and burst healing. Sure a sorc might have had slightly higher EHPS than intended, but their burst healing was weaker than the other 2 classes. With the new nerfs, stuff like the NiM Raptus healing challenge will encourage people to leave their sorcs and bring a merc instead.

 

Lol wut?

[realleaftea]

What about the other classes that are not receiving a much deserved NERF in 5.3, like Mara (at least carnage), Operative (at least lethality) and Assassin Deception, for instance, all of them are way above their DPS Target (lethality reach 10% above dps target where it should be "only" 5%) and gonna stay that way in 5.3, doing much more dps than everyone else now. One would think they should also be priority since are doing, like all the others that will be nerfed, above their dps target.

The 5.3 patch was never about 'fairness' or 'balance'.

 

Instead, it's mainly about lowering the surge bonuses (to lower the max. damage values you see in PvP), as well as nerfing the Engineering AoE and the Sorcerer heals.

 

To give this patch the touch of an overall balance, BioWare then tweaked a few 'easy' numbers.

 

Lethality isn't addressed because it would take more than just nerfing a few DoTs by 10%. And they can't nerf Carnage because the melee classes were the ones complaining in the first place and the most problematic skill - Ferocity - would have to be like this: "The next 2 single-target direct damage attacks have 100% armor penetration. Lasts for 10s"... but that's more complex than changing some existing numbers.

 

If you're helping the force management of Madness/Balance, you should also be helping the heat management of IO/Assault. They are both ranged dot dps specs and both have horrible resource management. Resource management isn't fun, playing and being able to use abilities is fun. I understand there needs to be a little management, but the entire spec shouldn't revolve around it...as that in no way makes it "fun".

BioWare doesn't care, because AS/IO players don't threaten to cancel their subscription. To give Madness an overly forgiving energy management is BioWare's response to the negative player feedback... that's all.

 

Most classes do have a negative energy management and with the exception of Sorcerers, they all have a 100~110pts total energy reserve. That means, every point missing is quite painful. But guess which class doesn't have a 'low energy penality'?

 

Let's look at some AoEs:

 

Merc - Sweeping Blaster: 32e base cost - 15e base regen. = 17 effective cost every 3s

Sniper - Suppressive Fire: 45e base cost - 22.5e base regen. = 22.5 effective cost every 4.5s

Sorcerer - Force Storm: 54e force cost - 24e base regen. = 30 effective cost every 3s

 

So whereas the former two classes can use their AoEs 4~5 times before they run out of energy, Sorcerers can use their Force Storm 20 times.

 

THAT's BioWare's idea of balance.

 

It's more significant as people did the grind on mains with CXP and now effectively have nerfed to death mains. In the past it wasn't a big deal, but with CXP Grind being character specific it's a lot more impact to players. All MMO's make nerfs, but you guys forcing folks into the CXP model makes it more annoying.

[...]

Your approach due to CXP should have been "BUFF" the other healers (Which I think are not that far behind our class).

CXP are a way to improve characters without being forced to raise the character level... that's all. And it means, characters perform better than before as the additional tiers of gear aren't included in the level sync of HM / NIM operations.

 

In order to buff other healers, it would require them to be in a bad position. But the opposite is the case. Furthermore, 5.0 was mainly a survivability improvement, which means healers should have less effort to keep the other classes alive.

 

And last but not least: If BioWare would really care about PvE and not just PvP, they would have fixed the tank classes as well.

 

You can go to Parsley and see what some very specific people intentionally uploaded to parsley. You can see what very good RNG can do, and what exceptionally skilled players can do, some of them. That is not representitive of the norm or the average. People don't generally get 50% critical hits/heals.

 

Even if there is 20 parses up for a section, what is that, maybe less than 1% of the actual number of people who play that spec around the world?

Let's check the StarParse metrics. There, you have over 3 million samples that are summed up in a DPS ranking.

Edited July 10, 2017 by realleaftea
spelling mistakes & colors

[realleaftea]

Maybe you need to wake up to reality, perhaps you are new to MMOs, but here's news for you: Every MMO (with healers) has 1 true healer class that is better at healing than other healers, but typically cannot do much else. Welcome to MMOs, after you have played a few weeks you'll learn how MMOs work.

That's nonsense.

 

Sure, no game will achieve perfect balance, so there will be the best DPS class, the best tank class or the best healer. And the same way, there will always be classes that are considered 'easier' or more 'favorable' for certain apsects. But none of that is intentional or set in stone.

 

F.e. if you compare the potential AoE damage of all three healer specs, the Sorcerer is clearly outstanding. And I doubt it has a significant damage deficit.

Edited July 10, 2017 by realleaftea