too many buttons (abilities) I am lost.

[CelsoLivero]

Hello good day, and sorry for my english (not my main language)

 

12 years ago I started to play World of Warcraft (WoW), and since then I have played it, this last weekend I decided to try to change game and history, I always liked star wars, so I decided to try the game.

After playing this Saturday I decided to pay for a period to have access to more content, and a little more history (even without having completed the initial content).

Overall the game is good, it catches your attention and the gameplay is good, however it fails in one aspect, there are a lot of buttons (spells, skills) and this complicates the game a bit.

In 14 years of WoW's existence, what the blizzard has learned from its fans / players is that it should make the game simpler to use, in the 14 years of the game many skills that were previously to be performed were removed or unified in others

(for example the shamans, they had a button for each totem, today they are 2 totems (defense), the other 4 (fire, air, earth, water) that are added with a single button. can be exchanged for something else if you do not want one more button in your rotation)

I, as a beginner I was very lost in so much ability to use and not knowing when to use each one.

 

I would wholeheartedly recommend that there be an adjustment to this, for example,

in the class I chose there are 3 or 4 abilities that cause stun / interrupt, leave only 1 or at most 2 for all classes, set your cooldown to 20-30s.

- Fillers (ability that is used to fill your resource) leaves only 1 without cooldown, which does not have much damage (i have 2, with a short cooldown)

Spenders, group some, remove others, let the rotation simpler.

- defense skill, here must be worked a little, a tank needs some with little cooldown and another more efficient with higher cooldown (I did not play tank, I can not give much opinion here)

- self healing, every class should have at least one, not very efficient for tank and dps, of course, just to keep you alive without relying on a companion healer.

- Buffs (this is ok)

in short, for good gameplay, there should be a maximum of 4 or 5 skills to be used in a rotation, and 2 or 3 skills for a basic healing, for greater damage protection, and one for interrupting a skill.

 

With this, the 20+ buttons / skills would be reduced to 8 or 9 buttons, being 5 for a rotation and 4 for survival.

 

 

P.S.: I create nd play as a Sith Assassin

[DocDAM]

If you are looking for help, the small bit of advice I can give is this: a lot of the abilities become more or less obsolete. Depending on your advanced class, and discipline choice, you’ll find that a half-dozen to probably less than 10, are primary use. So it isn’t quite as bad as it seems.

 

And Dulfy is the go to for all things SWTOR, including the class guides.

 

If just venting, then General Discussion or “Suggestion Box” (GD subforum) may be more appropriate for your post.

 

Still, I agree that there is active ability bloat in this game. Though I think you’ll find people with strongly held opposing views as well. This is my only MMO, so I don’t know the norm.

Edited May 7, 2018 by DocDAM

[JediQuaker]

I've played GW, GW2, and WoW (and played demos of a few others). It doesn't seem to me that this game has any particularly greater number of skills than any other - at least skills that form the core of your play.

I don't play Sith Assassin enough to comment on that class though.

[MajMattMason]

Sorry no one else has replied to this thread. I totally 100% agree with you. I too came from WoW. And for the most part you are correct, once you got to Wrath of the Lich King, most of the class spells and abilities worked out to at most a 12 spell rotation that was challenging but still doable even in a frantic boss fight.

 

My SW has way too many spells, 24+ spells that all have some angle that makes one different from the other, but not by much - not in a way that adding this much additional complexity results in satisfying game play. Which is sad because the actual combat mechanics in this game are pretty fluid and rewarding just by not being in the way - mobility is good, spell effects are decent.

 

So yes, trimming the spell glut would be a great idea.

[MajMattMason]

I've played GW, GW2, and WoW (and played demos of a few others). It doesn't seem to me that this game has any particularly greater number of skills than any other - at least skills that form the core of your play.

I don't play Sith Assassin enough to comment on that class though.

 

Nah, a SWTOR SW has way more spells than any class I played in WoW or GW (played demo warlock, balance, feral and resto druid, holy and shadow priest. and BM hunter at the raid level). The only time WoW got as bad with the spell glut as SWTOR was during the Cataclysm expansion, when I was using a 17-18 spell rotation on my demo warlock. And that expansion was followed by Mists of Pandara, for which the developers specifically addressed spell glut by significantly reducing the number of main rotation spells for all classes.

 

I left WoW for a couple of years shortly after Cataclysm came out largely due to the spell glut - it just wasn't fun to play my class anymore. Guess what game I started playing at around the same time? SWTOR. So it's a concern to me going forward with this game. Or not.

[MajMattMason]

If you are looking for help, the small bit of advice I can give is this: a lot of the abilities become more or less obsolete. Depending on your advanced class, and discipline choice, you’ll find that a half-dozen to probably less than 10, are primary use. So it isn’t quite as bad as it seems.

 

And Dulfy is the go to for all things SWTOR, including the class guides.

 

If just venting, then General Discussion or “Suggestion Box” (GD subforum) may be more appropriate for your post.

 

Still, I agree that there is active ability bloat in this game. Though I think you’ll find people with strongly held opposing views as well. This is my only MMO, so I don’t know the norm.

 

The information on Dulfy is not being updated - it's obsolete information and largely useless to me. GD posts about game play largely get ignored. Since SWTOR never came even close to WoW in terms of long-term subscription numbers, there weren't many 3rd party resources to begin with, and those that still exist are either obsolete or lacking in useful information. And I'm sure the few long-term players still playing aren't that keen on answering newbie questions all the time. So yes, I would say going forward into 6.0, everything that is an impediment to a new player sticking around long enough to become a long-term player should be looked at.

[CelsoLivero]

thanks to everyone for the answers, I just do not like to be a clicker, and so I'm playing because I do not know how to change it yet.

not to move, and click on all the keys that are necessary to play.

are 10 skills in rotation.

This is not life.

 

an example in WoW (now legion or beta of Battle for azeroth (I'm playing the beta) a shaman enhancement uses 5 buttons in the whole rotation.

a fire, frost or arcane mage, 4 to 5 buttons

monk, 5 buttons.

 

here, 10 buttons.

source: http://dulfy.net/2017/01/17/swtor-5-0-deception-assassin-pve-guide-by-jaek/

 

skills:

 

 

Recklessness

Discharge

Phantom Stride

Overcharge Saber

Ball Lightning

Voltaic Slash

Maul

Assassinate

Reaping Strike

Force Cloak

Edited May 7, 2018 by CelsoLivero

[CelsoLivero]

it is not very difficult to remove some skills, for example, those skills that buff others, could be passive.

example:

use of "Phantom Stride" or "Lacerate" procs "Recklessness" (100% from "Phantom Stride" and 10% from "Lacerate"), after procs "Recklessness" goes on cooldown (not proc 2x in few seconds)

 

"Force Cloak" can proc "Overcharge Saber"

 

could remove "Assassinate", including it effect buffing "Maul" when target is 35% or less health or even when some proc is active (after using Phantom Stride for example).

Edited May 7, 2018 by CelsoLivero

[FlameYOL]

I haven't played that many MMOs so I don't know what is the norm, but over time you do get used to the multiple keybinds. I play a Sith Assassin and make sure to have all useful abilities with a keybind, my advice is to slowly keybind things as you progress things, and run veteran flashpoints until you memorize your rotation and CDs/DCDs at first it's overwhelming but it doesn't take too long until your muscle memory starts kicking in. Anyway good luck with it!

[MajMattMason]

I haven't played that many MMOs so I don't know what is the norm, but over time you do get used to the multiple keybinds. I play a Sith Assassin and make sure to have all useful abilities with a keybind, my advice is to slowly keybind things as you progress things, and run veteran flashpoints until you memorize your rotation and CDs/DCDs at first it's overwhelming but it doesn't take too long until your muscle memory starts kicking in. Anyway good luck with it!

 

I'm already playing with 27 spells keybound - 3 spells on my Nostromo n52 (Q, E and R keys), and 12 on my Razer Naga, and 12 more on SHIFT + Razer Naga. That's called spell GLUT. You don't get used to it, you just deal with it. Which isn't all that fun, frankly.

 

I went out on my first veteran flashpoint with a guild member last week - I cannot even begin to explain how badly that went. If you're saying a few months down the road of doing this on a daily basis, I'll get better at it, well of course I will - but I don't have that kind of time or patience. I either enjoy playing this game at an acceptable level now, having fun in the process, or I move on to the next game.

 

There are some things I really do like about this game, but end game isn't looking great at this point. WoW gives you a path to progress end game - once you reach level cap the next steps are pretty clearly laid out in front of you. As far as I can tell, SWTOR does not do that. All I know is I trusted a more experienced player to show me the ropes and I was absolutely rocked with nothing to show for the time except a huge repair bill. I don't even know where to gear up for the harder modes - it sure the heck isn't the trade network - millions of credits for one decent item? And what about tank specialization? I've read that tanking gear shouldn't have defensive stats just endurance - what the hell? I get tank gear for my tank character and find out that none of it is useful - I just need to load up on stamina greens like we did back in vanilla WoW. So what's the point of gearing? You know where I looked for information like that? Everywhere. Where did I find this info? Stumbled across it in an unrelated thread. Good luck being a new or returning player in this game if you want end game.

[FlameYOL]

I'm already playing with 27 spells keybound - 3 spells on my Nostromo n52 (Q, E and R keys), and 12 on my Razer Naga, and 12 more on SHIFT + Razer Naga. That's called spell GLUT. You don't get used to it, you just deal with it. Which isn't all that fun, frankly.

 

I went out on my first veteran flashpoint with a guild member last week - I cannot even begin to explain how badly that went. If you're saying a few months down the road of doing this on a daily basis, I'll get better at it, well of course I will - but I don't have that kind of time or patience. I either enjoy playing this game at an acceptable level now, having fun in the process, or I move on to the next game.

 

There are some things I really do like about this game, but end game isn't looking great at this point. WoW gives you a path to progress end game - once you reach level cap the next steps are pretty clearly laid out in front of you. As far as I can tell, SWTOR does not do that. All I know is I trusted a more experienced player to show me the ropes and I was absolutely rocked with nothing to show for the time except a huge repair bill. I don't even know where to gear up for the harder modes - it sure the heck isn't the trade network - millions of credits for one decent item? And what about tank specialization? I've read that tanking gear shouldn't have defensive stats just endurance - what the hell? I get tank gear for my tank character and find out that none of it is useful - I just need to load up on stamina greens like we did back in vanilla WoW. So what's the point of gearing? You know where I looked for information like that? Everywhere. Where did I find this info? Stumbled across it in an unrelated thread. Good luck being a new or returning player in this game if you want end game.

 

Well again I don't find the endgame that bad, once you get down your rotation down it's pretty easy, it won't take months unless you play for a very small amount of time but again I don't know whether or not this is the norm but it's not that bad. If you're having trouble with your class check Dulfy.net, they have class guides there that explain everything from gearing to rotations.

[yohansvea]

coming from wow aswell i can relate that swtor is at first more difficult to get a grip on. But it gets easier, especially if you level your character from scratch that way you learn what u need. Like someone said a lot of abilities gets obsolete later on.

Also if your not doing PVP or the hardest content in the game u dont have to use Everything making the rotation easy with only a few buttons. For story mode content such as class story - leveling etc u dont need a set rotation just use the attacks that do the most damage. Reading up on abilites and what benefits from other abilites gives a great understand of the mechanics and the way the class should be played. To learn the best rotation for each class just check parse on the top players to learn how they do on a dummy, ofc not the same as a live fight but gives a good guide on what to use and in which order. Some classes there is a lot of abilities and a long rotation though but as above this is only to do the max damage which is only required for the hardest stuff in the game.

 

When you reach max level you will get command boxes with gear, since you earn command Points for anything u can do what ever you like and still gear up. So its easy to gear up and there is lots of content, its all about what you like to do.

 

So just relax, take your time and read Everything and it will come clear. If your making an alt its a good way to check out the legacy tab. Crafting makes gear and augments and you dont have to spend Money on anything really except repair bills unless Guild provides that. Doing Heroic missions gives easy credits though.

All in all i Think swtor rocks and compared to wow yeah it might be more difficult but not much and considering all the content swtor have compared to wow which is pretty much 0% imho there is a lot of fun hours to be spent online. Also play empire side, rep is a lie!!!

[JediQuaker]

I'm already playing with 27 spells keybound - 3 spells on my Nostromo n52 (Q, E and R keys), and 12 on my Razer Naga, and 12 more on SHIFT + Razer Naga. That's called spell GLUT. You don't get used to it, you just deal with it. Which isn't all that fun, frankly..

But the question I would ask would be .... why?

You seriously don't need all those skills to be bound to keys - you can just click on some of them on the skillbars. Some of those 27 skills must be mainly used outside of combat and/or are not that time sensitive.

You seem to be overly complicating things for yourself and then blaming it on the game.

[MajMattMason]

But the question I would ask would be .... why?

You seriously don't need all those skills to be bound to keys - you can just click on some of them on the skillbars. Some of those 27 skills must be mainly used outside of combat and/or are not that time sensitive.

You seem to be overly complicating things for yourself and then blaming it on the game.

 

So let's look at this thing closely - you are saying some of the skills don't need to be bound to keys as they become obsolete over time - which ones? I'm a tank - that is, I expect this SW Juggernaut Immortal I just leveled from 1-70 to be a tank. Tanking, to me, means being able to pull a mob or group of mobs and hold threat on them while DPS classes kill them. I also need to survive while that is happening, so I need damage mitigation and stats like stamina and damage mitigation.

 

So I need taunts, intervention spells, damage mitigation, mobility, CC and maybe also I should be doing some DPS to help hold aggro? So how many spells now?

 

So lot's of questions, and now I'm looking for answers. Here's what I found on Dulfy, apparently the only significant resource out there for answering these types of questions:

 

"So I've been bored with the game. Can't imagine why. /sarcasm So I decided to dust off some of my older alts and wanted to play my Juggernaut. I came here and there is no PvE Immortal Jugg or PvP Immortal Jugg guide. What gives?"

 

- Drool Bear • 6 months ago

 

"totally agree, nor dps guide either"

 

K_p_ut_kIn • 3 months ago

 

"Exactly what I was thinking"

 

Rob • 6 months ago

 

So what's a Sith to do? Sure, I can keep playing and eventually figure it out myself. I mean, I have tanked in WoW at the dungeon level, but i had a pretty clear idea of what I was doing thanks to all the resources available to me at the time. SWTOR doesn't have the resources.

 

So I'm not sure how hard to understand this dilemma is. And let me also repeat how absolutely awful the first experience attempting to tank in a veteran flash point was.

 

I tanked Dire Maul when it first came out in vanilla WoW with my bare durid to help a fellow warlock get his dreadsteed mount. And it was hard, boy was it hard. But I survived, my group survived, and we got the dreadsteed. Mission accomplished.

 

I'm talking about tanking some non-descript flash point in this game and being destroyed by the process and really not being able to determine why exactly - is my gear wrong (apparently it is, I need to bulk up on endurance like a WoW newbie tank wearing stamina greens in Scholomance)? How about my rotation? - oh, what's the SW jug immortal rotation - well I have a bunch of spells, it must be some combination of these spells . . .

[FlameYOL]

So let's look at this thing closely - you are saying some of the skills don't need to be bound to keys as they become obsolete over time - which ones? I'm a tank - that is, I expect this SW Juggernaut Immortal I just leveled from 1-70 to be a tank. Tanking, to me, means being able to pull a mob or group of mobs and hold threat on them while DPS classes kill them. I also need to survive while that is happening, so I need damage mitigation and stats like stamina and damage mitigation.

 

So I need taunts, intervention spells, damage mitigation, mobility, CC and maybe also I should be doing some DPS to help hold aggro? So how many spells now?

 

So lot's of questions, and now I'm looking for answers. Here's what I found on Dulfy, apparently the only significant resource out there for answering these types of questions:

 

"So I've been bored with the game. Can't imagine why. /sarcasm So I decided to dust off some of my older alts and wanted to play my Juggernaut. I came here and there is no PvE Immortal Jugg or PvP Immortal Jugg guide. What gives?"

 

- Drool Bear • 6 months ago

 

"totally agree, nor dps guide either"

 

K_p_ut_kIn • 3 months ago

 

"Exactly what I was thinking"

 

Rob • 6 months ago

 

So what's a Sith to do? Sure, I can keep playing and eventually figure it out myself. I mean, I have tanked in WoW at the dungeon level, but i had a pretty clear idea of what I was doing thanks to all the resources available to me at the time. SWTOR doesn't have the resources.

 

So I'm not sure how hard to understand this dilemma is. And let me also repeat how absolutely awful the first experience attempting to tank in a veteran flash point was.

 

I tanked Dire Maul when it first came out in vanilla WoW with my bare durid to help a fellow warlock get his dreadsteed mount. And it was hard, boy was it hard. But I survived, my group survived, and we got the dreadsteed. Mission accomplished.

 

I'm talking about tanking some non-descript flash point in this game and being destroyed by the process and really not being able to determine why exactly - is my gear wrong (apparently it is, I need to bulk up on endurance like a WoW newbie tank wearing stamina greens in Scholomance)? How about my rotation? - oh, what's the SW jug immortal rotation - well I have a bunch of spells, it must be some combination of these spells . . .

 

I don't know anything about Jugg tanking but while you do need endurance to survive damage spikes and the like I cna only think of focusing on endurance at the expense of defense/shield/absorb if you're tanking in PVP where those stats aren't as useful or so I hear. https://torcommunity.com/guides/classes/sith-warrior/sith-juggernaut/immortal#gearing-stats also I found this, it's from the 5.0 patch so things might be a little outdated but I hope it helps you with it.

[BuckeyeWolf]

Hello good day, and sorry for my english (not my main language)

 

12 years ago I started to play World of Warcraft (WoW), and since then I have played it, this last weekend I decided to try to change game and history, I always liked star wars, so I decided to try the game.

After playing this Saturday I decided to pay for a period to have access to more content, and a little more history (even without having completed the initial content).

Overall the game is good, it catches your attention and the gameplay is good, however it fails in one aspect, there are a lot of buttons (spells, skills) and this complicates the game a bit.

In 14 years of WoW's existence, what the blizzard has learned from its fans / players is that it should make the game simpler to use, in the 14 years of the game many skills that were previously to be performed were removed or unified in others

(for example the shamans, they had a button for each totem, today they are 2 totems (defense), the other 4 (fire, air, earth, water) that are added with a single button. can be exchanged for something else if you do not want one more button in your rotation)

I, as a beginner I was very lost in so much ability to use and not knowing when to use each one.

 

I would wholeheartedly recommend that there be an adjustment to this, for example,

in the class I chose there are 3 or 4 abilities that cause stun / interrupt, leave only 1 or at most 2 for all classes, set your cooldown to 20-30s.

- Fillers (ability that is used to fill your resource) leaves only 1 without cooldown, which does not have much damage (i have 2, with a short cooldown)

Spenders, group some, remove others, let the rotation simpler.

- defense skill, here must be worked a little, a tank needs some with little cooldown and another more efficient with higher cooldown (I did not play tank, I can not give much opinion here)

- self healing, every class should have at least one, not very efficient for tank and dps, of course, just to keep you alive without relying on a companion healer.

- Buffs (this is ok)

in short, for good gameplay, there should be a maximum of 4 or 5 skills to be used in a rotation, and 2 or 3 skills for a basic healing, for greater damage protection, and one for interrupting a skill.

 

With this, the 20+ buttons / skills would be reduced to 8 or 9 buttons, being 5 for a rotation and 4 for survival.

 

 

P.S.: I create nd play as a Sith Assassin

 

No. If you want a game with fewer abilities, I'd stick with WoW. Enjoy this game for what it is and has but it doesn't need to be anything like WoW. It doesn't need fewer abilities in fact I'd say that the amount we have is perfect.

Just like with WoW you get to decide what goes on your action bars and what doesn't, maybe try removing some abilities you feel you don't need or are to situational for you to have out, doing this will allow you to prune yourself while not affecting others

[JediQuaker]

you are saying some of the skills don't need to be bound to keys as they become obsolete over time

I did not suggest that any skills become "obsolete" - what I said was that you don't need to bind all your skills to keys - you can simply click on most of them.

Which, if any, skills you would use by just clicking would be up to you.

 

...let me also repeat how absolutely awful the first experience attempting to tank in a veteran flash point was.

The problem you experiencing may be because veteran FPs don't "require" a tank. Veteran FPs are designed to be do-able by any group. If you go through Group Finder as a DPS you'll find that most of the time you'll be in either a group of 4 DPS or 3 DPS and 1 healer. This means 3 things when you group as a tank:

1. The rest of the group is used to doing the FP without a tank and therefore, doesn't wait around for you to attack first or grab agro, etc.

2. The FP is designed in such a way that grabbing agro, etc, isn't "required".

3. You may need to look after your own health. This may mean breaking agro to run to a kolto station - but don't worry, the rest of the group won't mind.

 

Veteran FPs are good for Tanking practice, but if you really want to "Tank" in the classic sense you need to do Master Mode FPs or OPs.

Edited May 10, 2018 by JediQuaker

[MajMattMason]

I did not suggest that any skills become "obsolete" - what I said was that you don't need to bind all your skills to keys - you can simply click on most of them.

 

My bad - it was the other Jedi that posted in this thread that said that so I assumed it was true.

[ShallowHal]

You get used to it after a while and realize which abilities are the most important, but I agree that some paring down of the amount of abilities would improve the game.

[SergeantSnacks]

Search for your advance class rotations on Dulfy or Vulkk and remove any abilities you really do not need. I have all available but the main rotation, interrupt, stun and taunt abilities are always in my priority quickbars.

[Eoinol]

CelsoLivero, from all your messages, I think that you have started in SWTOR with a boosted character, i.e. to level 65 or 70??

 

The reason I say this is I also started with a Sith Assassin, but at level 1, I learned to play it, built it to level 30 or so.

When I knew I liked it, then I also created a boosted character, this one level 70.

 

Because I started at level 1 on the first Sith Assassin, it was far easier to play the level 70

 

Hope this helps.

[felleto]

I too think that there are too many skills. However, I think they did a good job of at least reducing the number of skills with the LOS patch. Also, I agree with what yohansvea said. They did a really good job at giving you abilities at certain levels so you can get used to the new skills in time. I have been playing with a new trooper with the same skills for at least 10 levels. Only now I got trickshot which is one new skill I need to get used to. I see your point but I like swtor to keep its identity, it is already too much of a wow clone and I prefer swtor 1000 times over the mind numbing questing and combat experience that is wow. I wish they would move even further away from wow if possible, tab targeting combat and all that by making it a little more action combat oriented like GW2. I think this type of combat would suit swtor very well, having to aim your blaster would be soooo cooool.