Class balance goals and target DPS

[auroroavalor]

I'd like to start a discussion about Class balance and diversity, in the hope we might see some change to the way classes are balanced in SWTOR. Class balance and diversity is key to a healthy MMO and something I've felt for a long time that SWTOR has lacked. Due in part to design decisions and a reluctance to upset the status quo to the detriment of the majority of DPS specs in the game. I want to outline some issues I see with the the DPS meta as it has evolved over 5.0 and some concerns on how it may continue into 6.0 with little to no change.

 

To begin I'd like to briefly go over the current design philosophy and class meta. It was previously stated that BW balanced classes around a target DPS figure with +/- 5% of this figure depending on whether a class was considered melee/range or burst/sustained. For those unfamiliar with how this was this impacted classes

 

+5% melee sustained, at target DPS melee burst/range sustained, -5% ranged burst

 

There were two exceptions to this rule in Fury Marauders and Virulence Snipers which were +2.5% and -2.5% of target DPS respectively.

 

Bearing in mind this publicly stated class balance goal I'd like to briefly outline the 5.10 DPS meta as I see it from a desirability standpoint as a raider. My intention here is to highlight how this design decision impacted the player meta.

 

Tier List

 

S+ Anni, Pyro, AP, Leth

S Veng, Hatred, Fury, IO

A Viru,

B Arsenal, Engi, Carnage, Conc, Dec, MM

F Madness, Lightning, Rage

 

 

Obviously this is open to interpretation and people are welcome to disagree with me on the placement of certain specs but I think there is a broad consensus that throughout 5.0, especially post 5.10 melee have been incredibly dominant in the meta and this has led to the near complete abandonment of certain classes and specializations. This is further exacerbated by the stagnation of the meta in SWTOR, without going into too much detail around timelines it has been nearly 5 years since either sorcerer specs were considered a meta class.

 

Should classes still be balanced around whether they're melee/ranged or burst/sustained DPS?

 

Here are my thoughts on the matter, I'd love to hear yours.

 

Melee/Ranged

 

 

Is the opportunity cost of being melee still present? Gods from the Machine highlighted how much stronger melee classes are when uptime isn't a factor, even then I would argue melee are approaching equal if not in some cases better uptime than ranged. Whether that's due to mobility creep or the potential 10% base DPS differential between them I can't be sure.

 

 

Burst/Sustained

 

 

This one is tricky, I'm not entirely convinced SWTOR has any true burst specs, let alone any real sustained specs. How does one define a burst spec? is it damage over a 4GCD window? 8? 12? if it's the latter that certainly gives DoT specs enough time to get their DoTs out and start ramping up their damage. Sustained specs encroach even further in potential burst windows if there's the opportunity to precast. If I were to look specifically at Mercs, over a 4GCD window is Mag Blast, Thermal Det, Power Shot, Mag Blast that much less DPS than Heatseeker Missile, Rail Shot, Vortex Bolt, Tracer Missile? the answer is no. Personally I'd like to see burst specs offer a more pronounced peak and trough during their DPS profile.

 

 

Personally I'd favour an imbalanced meta that constantly shifted simply because Lightning hasn't been desirable for years yet Annihilation and Advanced Prototype have been defacto specs in every team since 4.0 and it has become stagnant. There's nothing inherently wrong with things being over powered or under powered so long as everything gets its time in the sun.

[AUTChris]

What I'd love is if the Devs could run a tracker in the background that logs class participation in NiM Ops (one list for the most current Op and another general one for all NiM Ops) and then filter out everyone who is parsing below 80 or 90% of the average (to get rid of people who buy achievements)

 

And then basically buff/nerf under-/overperforming specs based on that data rather than on fixed lists

[AwesomeTacoCat]

I think this is a solid post that captures most of the issues with the current meta.

 

As far as the range/melee imbalance, it seems like the fact that melee has more instant cast abilities than range should be enough. The only dps classes I play are IO and Anni, but these seem to highlight this point fairly well. Anni has no casted abilities, while IO has 2 casted abilities that are used in the main rotation. This difference alone would seem enough to create equal uptime. Hence, adding a 5% dps increase on top of this seems like overkill. Maybe the solution is as simple as taking away the 5% decrease for melee sustained over ranged sustained?

 

As far as burst specs vs dot specs, I think it's an issue of how quickly one can get to the burst portion of their rotation. Like taking the merc example, IO needs like 8GCDs or something to get to the burst portion of the rotation whereas arsenal needs fewer as I recall. But I agree it seems sensible to have a more pronounced peak/trough in these rotations.

[ottffsse]

Where to begin...

In PvP DcDs and not dummy dps is king so there's that...entirely different topic but in general in 5.0xplayers agree mercs, snipers, maras are in very good shape here and PTs and Sorcs (lesser degree to lightning/corruption) are not. Everyone else is kind of in the middle.

 

in nim raids ok, there are three specs that are OP right now (assume 242 flat gear without the gear level creep afterwards) and let me tell you why: 1.) AP PT - yeah have best burst and their sustain is closer to a sustain spec than a burst spec. 2.) Fury - same situation as AP PT/ slightly less bursty but no much 3.) Virulence - again they got burst and parse as much or more than most sustain specs. They also got great aoe.

 

Now apart from those three imbalances above, difference to highest parsing to lowest parsing spec should be close to a 5% range than a 10% range. Unless "burst: specs get their burst peaks buffed to something like 150K in three seconds. Then we are cool again. Marksman and Arsenal are the only real ranged burst specs anyways especially marksman as you can target switch with no dots/prep needed.

[ImNotOnABoat]

I agree with most of what you say regarding a current "tier list" of dps specs.

 

When grading on the S, A, B, C... scale, I tend to refer to the MOBA definitions of how they do tier lists

S- Able to be played in any composition and perform above the focal point of balance

A- Able to be played in any composition and perform AT the focal point of balance

B- Able to be played in most group compositions and perform at the point of balance, or any composition and performs below the point of balance

C-Requires a SPECIFIC composition to become viable

D/F- Incapable of clearing content

 

For the most part, until nightmare gods, there was hardly a class that would fall into this definition of D tier, most lining up in the B tier. One could argue that even up until Nahut, every class and composition *could* clear the bosses. Nahut was the first time (in awhile) where some classes simply couldn't bring enough to the table to clear even with the other 7 classes being in "s tier". Overall I don't like when this situation happens and some classes cannot, within reasonable bounds, clear a given piece of content.

 

I agree that it might be time for a meta shift to see some previously unpopular specs come into the limelight, and some that have had their time in the sun to get put wherever Bioware kept the sorc dps in 3.0. I'd say the most recent "jump" in the tierlist was fury marauder going from one of the lowest classes to one of the highest classes, and perfect reason to have this happen again with something like the lightning sorc, as you mentioned.

 

Some classes, however cannot fall out of meta simply because of the utility they can bring to a group, which i believe also can impact how viable a class can be on a tier list. Snipers being able to provide good raid wide defensive's, Vengeance applying an armor debuff in an aoe, all unique features that "up" their ranking in a tier list, regardless of their dps. Should these classes with unique abilities have a slightly lower dps target, when they provide something else which "buffs" other dps.