I got hit by an Assassin so hard it uninstalled the game

[JediMasterAlex]

So my reasoning skills defending my specific position against the OP are poor because I didn't instead defend my position against others in the thread as well, is that what you're stating?

 

No. People started bringing up other points rather early in the thread, and you did not effectively address many of them (hence the poor reasoning). Instead, you chose to only counter the OP's point. I'm not sure why you think a forum thread has to be so rigid.

[JediMasterAlex]

So I'm not allowed to bring up other classes when considering balancing a class? I admit, instead of only bringing up snipers, I instead should have brought up everything that all classes can do to demonstrate what the ramifications are for adjusting Sin/Shadows. I'm more than happy to do that, actually, if you so inquire.

 

I mean, if you have a case that the current state of sins is balanced, then by all means, you should make it. You haven't done so yet in this thread. Remember, I opened my post in this thread by saying I had no position on whether sins are balanced or not because I haven't played enough arenas against good ones.

 

You've never seen me offer and explanation for it because I don't think it's balanced, show me a quote where I said it's balanced for Stealth to be able to do this and no one else, I'll wait.

 

That's fair enough, but you've never acknowledged it's unbalanced until now either.

Edited November 3, 2019 by JediMasterAlex

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

No. People started bringing up other points rather early in the thread, and you did not effectively address many of them (hence the poor reasoning). Instead, you chose to only counter the OP's point. I'm not sure why you think a forum thread has to be so rigid.

 

Ok, let me sum this whole thread up for you then, so that you have a singular post to reference for my opinions and thoughts behind this entire thread.

 

Can we balance how hard Assassins are hitting right now in PVP, before they make every other class in the game totally irrelevant?

 

The undergeared ones are hitting for 50k and the geared ones are in the 60-65k range.

 

I agree that Maul hits too hard in the context of triple maul spam in the opener. I've made the statement that maul damage needs to be toned down in multiple different areas (discord, my stream, PTS threads, a podcast I've done with fellow streamers). This is a valid concern.

 

The combo of high damage and low survivability is what ruined PTs/Vanguards in the 3.0 era. It became faceroll easy because there was no counterplay to crazy damage. I'm noticing assassins/shadows are in the same circumstance PTs were back then. They seem to me to be proportionately hitting way harder than everybody else at roughly the same levels of gear. Maybe I'm wrong in all this, but I can't help but notice someone can mash maul and watch a 1/4 of a life bar disappear.

 

I disagree with this because Assassins have the innate advantage of gearing faster than everyone else, so I believe this statement is catagorically false, because currently assassins do not have the same level of gear, they have better gear via the form of the 4 pc Death Knell set bonus which is a large power spike, and the 6 pc Death Knell set bonus which is a huge spike in power for the sin. The same can be said of other classes when they gain their set bonuses, like Powertechs with the Right Price set, Operatives with the Tactician set, and so on and so forth.

 

 

The only thing more ridiculous than this title is how good stunlocking people to death from stealth is. Being able to do insane damage is one thing, but being able to do it while your opponent eats 2 chained stuns really breaks the balance in PVP. Classes that do insane damage need to be squishy. Classes that can stunlock others have their burst tempered so that others have a chance to respond. Otherwise, it's not fair and it's also boring when you can melt defenceless players.

 

In the past scoundrels/ops had a knockdown/stun on their backblast that was deemed to be way too strong of a burst+stun combo. It was changed so K.O interrupts and roots. See where this might be headed? Either some Assassin gear pieces need a balance check or something like Assassins loses their stun from stealth and instead get a root. The stunlock and strong burst combo is too good. Way too good.

 

My counterpoint to this was on page 6, where I show that you can actually avoid the entire stun lock 100% of the time. We can still nerf spike, but it seems knee-jerky to do so before everyone has acquired their power spike via their 6 pc set bonus and when the statement that we can stun lock in the first place is a false one, so we would be balancing a class based on a false premise. A strange thing to do, in my opinion.

 

Imagine actually defending being able to do 90-100% of someones health in just a couple seconds. people forming roaming death squads of stealthers for even regs just to go around swarming people for 50-70k a hit with next to nothing you can do about it.

 

I've stated in a prior statement above that the maul opener can be nerfed damage wise, that's probably fine and for the best. Roaming death squads is super disingenuous to the argument because you can do that with any class and that's not unique to Assassins.

 

The problem isn't whether you can or cannot react to these issues. The problem is how unbalanced tacticals make PVP.

 

It's funny to see people compare sins to snipers and say, "hey, if they can do it, then so should we." You don't balance an OP ability with another OP ability. Same with operatives getting 6 rolls. The devs simply wanted things that looked great on paper, then locked the door and tossed away the key. Who cares about balance, right?

 

This player clarified that they were actually referencing Set bonuses, not tacticals. With that in mind, we aren't comparing Assassins vs a host of people who also have their set bonuses. We are comparing geared Assassins vs people who don't have their set bonuses yet, aka, under geared players. Is it not strange to compare a fully geared player to one who lacks gear? Should we not wait at least a few months for everyone to have gear and then compare the playing field?

 

I ask this because I have been doing ranked on Darth Malgus against players I consider to be of equal skill, who also are fully geared with set bonuses, which means we are playing an on even playing field, and in THAT scenario, you can see how balance truly lies, and in THAT scenario (one where everyone is geared and not just the assassin) sins are not OP by even any stretch of the imagination and they cannot global people at all with their opener.

 

Let’s get one thing clear. People who are defending Assassin right now are being ridiculous. It’s true assassins have very little defensive capability, but that doesn’t mean they should be hitting insanely hard. What it means is that some of their defensive toolkit needs to be buffed and reworked, and that damage should be kept at a reasonable level.

 

Also, I love how when confronted about assassins krea is like “what about snipers omg so op!!!1!!!”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

 

I agree, let's nerf Maul's damage and buff defensive capabilities, this actually falls in line with what I've always believed and statements that I've made in the past in other threads. Regarding the "whataboutism" I've already stated that I was actually comparing a Geared sin with a Geared sniper to show that when both players are geared, they are capable of similar damage output. However, I instead should have gone through all of the classes to demonstrate how they are all strong in their own regards in ways that could be considered nerf-worthy. This is the first expansion where literally all classes are "equal" with each other in that they are all OP in their own ways. As the saying goes, if everyone is OP, no one is. So if we nerf assassin, what actually happens is that they go immediately from being balanced to poorly balanced, instead of going from OP to balanced.

 

In fact, there is only 1 class right now that is underperforming at a high level and that's Juggernaut, though that's also because Juggernaut has gear that is gated by crafting and operations, meaning the time gate for Juggs to be fully geared is longer than other classes, so we can't actually see how they perform fully geared yet and won't be able to for at least 2 more weeks.

 

That's fair enough, but you've never acknowledged it's unbalanced until now either.

 

It's unbalanced.

 

The rest of the comments are either personal attacks on myself or attempts to discredit me by making assumptions about how I perceive my fellow forum goer, so I'm not going to respond to those.

 

I hope this was adequate enough for you to see exactly what my stance is and that my argument is no longer of "poor" quality.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[JediMasterAlex]

Should we not wait at least a few months for everyone to have gear and then compare the playing field?

 

I ask this because I have been doing ranked on Darth Malgus against players I consider to be of equal skill, who also are fully geared with set bonuses, which means we are playing an on even playing field, and in THAT scenario, you can see how balance truly lies, and in THAT scenario (one where everyone is geared and not just the assassin) sins are not OP by even any stretch of the imagination and they cannot global people at all with their opener.

 

A few months might be a bit long, but I agree that we need to see a decent sample size in ranked play to really get a handle on things.

 

In fact, there is only 1 class right now that is underperforming at a high level and that's Juggernaut, though that's also because Juggernaut has gear that is gated by crafting and operations, meaning the time gate for Juggs to be fully geared is longer than other classes, so we can't actually see how they perform fully geared yet and won't be able to for at least 2 more weeks.

 

I'm not convinced that PTs are balanced yet, at least in solo ranked. There were a few queueing last night, and while they survived longer than 5.0, they seemed about on par with juggs. Maybe they didn't have the right tacticals/set bonuses yet though.

 

I hope this was adequate enough for you to see exactly what my stance is and that my argument is no longer of "poor" quality.

 

Your positions in this post were far clearer than elsewhere in the thread, with plenty of brand new information mixed in (for those of us that don't follow you in the other sources you mentioned).

Edited November 3, 2019 by JediMasterAlex

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

A few months might be a bit long, but I agree that we need to see a decent sample size in ranked play to really get a handle on things.

 

That's just how it is. There's no changing it. One of Juggs best tacticals can only be obtained via schematic that is sold by Kai Zykken. However it's random whether Kai has the schematic in his shop or not. The last two sessions of Kai's shop being open, the tactical schematic was not present. Gotta wait for the rotation for the schematic to pop up, which could take up to 2 months.

 

I'm not convinced that PTs are balanced yet, at least in solo ranked. There were a few queueing last night, and while they survived longer than 5.0, they seemed about on par with juggs. Maybe they didn't have the right tacticals/set bonuses yet though.

 

I have to assume that we have different definitions of what's balanced then, as well as we must be facing different quality powertechs. All of the Powertechs I've faced who have their full set bonuses and tacticals are able to kill at least 1 player before they die, or at least heavily contribute to a player's death before their own. What I mean by that is, whenever there are specific PTs on the enemy team (geared ones who know what they're doing), more often than not one of my team mates dies either shortly after the enemy PT dies or even before they die, purely because of the PTs incredible burst as well as their new ability which almost guarantees that they have enough burst to kill someone before they die since the ability does more damage the more focused they are.

 

Juggernauts are not capable of ensuring that they "take a player with them" so to speak, so I see PT as ranked much higher than Jugg. On top of that, Pyro PT is actually insane in arenas atm but it's underplayed by the masses. Once more people catch on, it will be pretty annoying to deal with en mass.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[JediMasterAlex]

I have to assume that we have different definitions of what's balanced then, as well as we must be facing different quality powertechs. All of the Powertechs I've faced who have their full set bonuses and tacticals are able to kill at least 1 player before they die, or at least heavily contribute to a player's death before their own. What I mean by that is, whenever there are specific PTs on the enemy team (geared ones who know what they're doing), more often than not one of my team mates dies either shortly after the enemy PT dies or even before they die, purely because of the PTs incredible burst as well as their new ability which almost guarantees that they have enough burst to kill someone before they die since the ability does more damage the more focused they are.

 

Juggernauts are not capable of ensuring that they "take a player with them" so to speak, so I see PT as ranked much higher than Jugg. On top of that, Pyro PT is actually insane in arenas atm but it's underplayed by the masses. Once more people catch on, it will be pretty annoying to deal with en mass.

 

We'll see. I have nothing against pts being decent, so I hope you're right

[Csjbo]

It does look as though the burst on deception sin and the cleave on pyro pt are a bit overtuned because they can put out a lot without much effort. I remember seeing Krea, on his stream do 70k,50k,30k,50k...stealth....60k,50k,30k,40k...end match. For deception sins, maybe make the resource cost of the mauls go up so that spamming said attack carries substantial risk.

 

I'll reserve full judgment on what adjustments need to be made to deception sins until season 12 starts and we see how, when the games actually matter, how the meta plays with, or around the deception sin burst. Warrior awe/diversion. jugg/saber-throw/obfuscate, for example, could really neuter the burst if played correctly...and by correctly, I mean spam on CD if there are multiple warriors in a match. I may be wrong though.....

 

atleastnowpeoplewontbecomplainingaboutfurymarasandtreatthemastheonlyclassinthegamewithccimmunity

Edited November 3, 2019 by Csjbo

[DavidAtkinson]

It does look as though the burst on deception sin and the cleave on pyro pt are a bit overtuned because they can put out a lot without much effort. I remember seeing Krea, on his stream do 70k,50k,30k,50k...stealth....60k,50k,30k,40k...end match. For deception sins, maybe make the resource cost of the mauls go up so that spamming said attack carries substantial risk.

 

I'll reserve full judgment on what adjustments need to be made to deception sins until season 12 starts and we see how, when the games actually matter, how the meta plays with, or around the deception sin burst. Warrior awe/diversion. jugg/saber-throw/obfuscate, for example, could really neuter the burst if played correctly...and by correctly, I mean spam on CD if there are multiple warriors in a match. I may be wrong though.....

 

atleastnowpeoplewontbecomplainingaboutfurymarasandtreatthemastheonlyclassinthegamewithccimmunity

 

It's highly UNLIKELY that Bioware will do anything with the classes anytime soon given their history of 5.0 class balancing....

 

People will start heavily complaining about classes once the season goes live. Now everyone's way too busy grinding for their gears to actually care.

 

As a mara main I can't comment on sins, I don't care to be honest.. My goal is to have fun and stop worrying over things I have no power to change.

 

I am queing solo ranked and it's a lot of operatives and sins as expected. Gonna be tough this season for sure.

[Fellow-Canadian]

Now is the time when we juxtapose!

 

The rest of the comments are either personal attacks on myself or attempts to discredit me by making assumptions about how I perceive my fellow forum goer, so I'm not going to respond to those.

 

Also, you have a CC breaker for if you are stun locked and Defensive Cooldowns. Use them.

 

No no no, not making any assumptions at all, are we? You genuinely and humbly believe that nobody thought of using cooldowns in PVP and weren't at all making an l2p quip? You have made some well thought out posts, but are you going to pretend like your initial reaction wasn't to assume "oh, this person criticized assassins so they're probably bad and don't understand the game". Took video evidence to confirm I am competent and you didn't really seem to know what to do with that information. You realized you might be dealing with a reasonable person and had to take it seriously. You have obviously thought about the problem and have softened your stance, albeit not humbly and more begrudgingly.

 

Feel free to not comment on that one, but it's public for all to see.

 

Anyways, more of my thoughts:

 

K'rea, You also zero'd in on the lowest resolution version of the problem as your defense. If the player reacts perfectly in the narrowest of windows and has the necessary cooldowns up, then whatever overwhelming potential assassins have is therefore justified. An assassin can put someone into a checkmate position so easily and so early in an engagement, it's not even really fair. You are worried about the first 4 seconds of any fight and I'm looking at the course of 2 arena rounds or 10-15min warzones.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Now is the time when we juxtapose!

 

 

 

 

 

No no no, not making any assumptions at all, are we? You genuinely and humbly believe that nobody thought of using cooldowns in PVP and weren't at all making an l2p quip? You have made some well thought out posts, but are you going to pretend like your initial reaction wasn't to assume "oh, this person criticized assassins so they're probably bad and don't understand the game". Took video evidence to confirm I am competent and you didn't really seem to know what to do with that information. You realized you might be dealing with a reasonable person and had to take it seriously. You have obviously thought about the problem and have softened your stance, albeit not humbly and more begrudgingly.

 

Feel free to not comment on that one, but it's public for all to see.

 

Anyways, more of my thoughts:

 

K'rea, You also zero'd in on the lowest resolution version of the problem as your defense. If the player reacts perfectly in the narrowest of windows and has the necessary cooldowns up, then whatever overwhelming potential assassins have is therefore justified. An assassin can put someone into a checkmate position so easily and so early in an engagement, it's not even really fair. You are worried about the first 4 seconds of any fight and I'm looking at the course of 2 arena rounds or 10-15min warzones.

 

If you took offense to me attempting to show you some options about how to counter the opener then sorry. But you making assumptions about my intentions isn't advancing your point any further. And honestly, this is all very tiring. Let's just make this simple. You think sins should be nerfed. I agree.

 

Easy resolution, no? No more need to make baseless assumptions and do this back and forth dance that leads no where and adds up to nothing of value.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[TrixxieTriss]

Kre’a, would you say the only nerf needed for sins is the tactical swapping?

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Kre’a, would you say the only nerf needed for sins is the tactical swapping?

 

Nerf tactical swapping, nerf Maul damage in the opener, bring them back down to 5.x levels.

[Cupelixx]

Now is the time when we juxtapose!

 

 

 

 

 

No no no, not making any assumptions at all, are we? You genuinely and humbly believe that nobody thought of using cooldowns in PVP and weren't at all making an l2p quip? You have made some well thought out posts, but are you going to pretend like your initial reaction wasn't to assume "oh, this person criticized assassins so they're probably bad and don't understand the game". Took video evidence to confirm I am competent and you didn't really seem to know what to do with that information. You realized you might be dealing with a reasonable person and had to take it seriously. You have obviously thought about the problem and have softened your stance, albeit not humbly and more begrudgingly.

 

Feel free to not comment on that one, but it's public for all to see.

 

Anyways, more of my thoughts:

 

K'rea, You also zero'd in on the lowest resolution version of the problem as your defense. If the player reacts perfectly in the narrowest of windows and has the necessary cooldowns up, then whatever overwhelming potential assassins have is therefore justified. An assassin can put someone into a checkmate position so easily and so early in an engagement, it's not even really fair. You are worried about the first 4 seconds of any fight and I'm looking at the course of 2 arena rounds or 10-15min warzones.

 

Okay. I wouldn't call myself a PVP expert but I've done my share of it in this game. A lot of that time being a Darkness sin. It's usually been a pretty good class. But seriously, they are so screwed if you can establish range on them. Kre'a lists a number of ways to bust the opener for almost every class, and you demonstrated so in your own video. There ARE countermeasures. They don't just press 3 buttons on you and then have a guaranteed win 100% of the time. Against a player with a little know-how like shown in your video, sins don't look very impressive to me at all. If two of them get the drop on you at once, you're probably done. But that's not the argument here.

 

I see a lot of arguing, but my question is "why?". I just don't get the problem. The current opener is absolutely not a thing for which there is zero defense. It has been explained and placed on video demonstrating that just because a sin starts up on you doesn't mean you're dead no matter what.

 

What is the problem then? Is it "the only defense is DCDs and you don't always have those" then? Okay, so you won't have DCDs up every time a sin jumps you and sometimes you're gonna get trucked. But guess what...that's the case with any class in PVP. Any class caught without DCDs is going to be easy prey. PVP would be extremely boring if every class could "get out of jail free" 100% of the time against every class, player, spec, or tactic.

 

OR, is it "the timing window is too small"? Proper awareness and DCD timing is something that again, affects every class in PVP. Snipers have a wealth of tools at their disposal. But a sniper who doesn't use them competently is still going to get rocked. That timing window is also small against other classes too, so that argument doesn't really hold up either.

 

I seriously question whether the spec itself really is too strong, or if the whole debate is because people just don't like coming up against something they're potentially vulnerable to. Nobody likes losing, but everyone dies in PVP. Somewhere, sometime. If not to a Smash jugg, then a stealthed assassin. If not a stealthed assassin, a merc. If not a merc, a lightning sorc. If not a lightning sorc, a sniper shooting your face off. If not a sniper shooting your face off, a concealment operative slicing your heart in half. If not a concealment operative slicing your heart in half......

[TrixxieTriss]

Nerf tactical swapping, nerf Maul damage in the opener, bring them back down to 5.x levels.

 

Be careful with the maul nerf idea. We all know how Bioware nerf stuff, they are likely to nerf it into the ground. Plus, the opener isn’t always available for the rest of the fight and if you are in regs, you may only get to use it a few times

But, you are definitely more knowledgeable on these things with Sins, so I’ll defer to your judgment if you think it’s too OP.

 

#nerfOPS

Edited November 4, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Be careful with the maul nerf idea. We all know how Bioware nerf stuff, they are likely to nerf it into the ground. Plus, the opener isn’t always available for the rest of the fight and if you are in regs, you may only get to use it a few times

But, you are definitely more knowledgeable on these things with Sins, so I’ll defer to your judgment if you think it’s too OP.

 

#nerfOPS

 

Oh I know that if you nerf Maul then it severely demolishes the spec since outside of the opener it has low to medium damage, which will have negative repercussions on PvE parses and performance in raids. But that’s what the people want, so let’s give it to them, I’ll play the spec either way

Edited November 4, 2019 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[Fellow-Canadian]

Okay. I wouldn't call myself a PVP expert but I've done my share of it in this game. A lot of that time being a Darkness sin. It's usually been a pretty good class. But seriously, they are so screwed if you can establish range on them. Kre'a lists a number of ways to bust the opener for almost every class, and you demonstrated so in your own video. There ARE countermeasures. They don't just press 3 buttons on you and then have a guaranteed win 100% of the time. Against a player with a little know-how like shown in your video, sins don't look very impressive to me at all. If two of them get the drop on you at once, you're probably done. But that's not the argument here.

 

I see a lot of arguing, but my question is "why?". I just don't get the problem. The current opener is absolutely not a thing for which there is zero defense. It has been explained and placed on video demonstrating that just because a sin starts up on you doesn't mean you're dead no matter what.

 

What is the problem then? Is it "the only defense is DCDs and you don't always have those" then? Okay, so you won't have DCDs up every time a sin jumps you and sometimes you're gonna get trucked. But guess what...that's the case with any class in PVP. Any class caught without DCDs is going to be easy prey. PVP would be extremely boring if every class could "get out of jail free" 100% of the time against every class, player, spec, or tactic.

 

OR, is it "the timing window is too small"? Proper awareness and DCD timing is something that again, affects every class in PVP. Snipers have a wealth of tools at their disposal. But a sniper who doesn't use them competently is still going to get rocked. That timing window is also small against other classes too, so that argument doesn't really hold up either.

 

I seriously question whether the spec itself really is too strong, or if the whole debate is because people just don't like coming up against something they're potentially vulnerable to. Nobody likes losing, but everyone dies in PVP. Somewhere, sometime. If not to a Smash jugg, then a stealthed assassin. If not a stealthed assassin, a merc. If not a merc, a lightning sorc. If not a lightning sorc, a sniper shooting your face off. If not a sniper shooting your face off, a concealment operative slicing your heart in half. If not a concealment operative slicing your heart in half......

 

Well the points you raised aren't wrong, but some are just not good arguements because they're too generic. The devil is in the details. You're using vague anecdotes that can be true for anything. You need to make a point about the distinctions between classes.

 

For example: Assassins are screwed because because they can be kited. That's true for any melee. If you want to make a case for assassins, you need to explain how assassins are more screwed than other melee classes in order to justify the current insane opener.

 

Also, the suggestion that assassin burst and control is balanced because anyone can pop a cooldown is assuming every class exerts the exact same pressure and responds in the same way. You have to say for each class what the impact is.

 

To elaborate on that:

 

If you look at 5.0 it was universally accepted Maras and snipers were the best DPS. Mercs too I suppose if you want to factor in dcds. Now, because every class has a cooldown to pop, would you say the level of effectiveness against maras is equivalent to the same level as lightning sorcs? Different classes mean the effectiveness is different. A Mara can be reduced to good damage from really good damage while a lightning sorc would go from terrible damage to non-existent.

 

Fast forward to 6.0 assassins you can't just say pop a cooldown and you'll be fine. You must talk about how strong the assassin is in the opener because that cooldown's effectiveness is relative to the class you use it against.

 

No matter how good the theory is, you should occasionally look at the results.

 

As an example, when 3.0 came out Bioware radically overhauled the tactics and assault specs for Vanguards and gave them the more modern version of tactics and plasmatech. 3.0 tactics was a monster. Unparalleled burst and shoulder missiles firing every .25sec. When you pop your crit cooldown, anybody you went after died. It took literally no skill to execute and it didn't matter what your opponent was doing. The AOE damage was also out of control, the cooldown for mortar volley was reduced for tactics so much that you could continuously cast it for as long as you had ammo. The single target damage and stuns became so overwhelming you just didn't survive it. This class became universally accepted by all PVPers as way too strong. There were defenders of its OPness too at the time because the class was a little squishy.

 

So, let's apply your argument's logic to something else. If you just keep the 3.0 vanguard at range they can't hurt you. Just learn to play and they aren't overpowered. Or just pop a cooldown at the start and the scary vanguard isn't so scary and therefore the class is balanced.

 

Bioware did tone things down eventually, but it still wasn't enough. Tactics Vanguards were still blowing people up. It was so bad I stopped playing my vanguard because it wasn't fun. People had no response that could stop me and I was stacking bodies as no other class could. It's much more satisfying to play a class that is balanced or suboptimal because when you killed a vanguard you know it's because you outplayed them.

 

Anyways, your points make sense at first glance but when you apply the logic they don't hold up well. 3.0 Vanguards ruined an entire expansion meta because they just stacked the top of every scoresheet with massive damage and a ridiculous amount of kills. The team with the most Vanguards was almost always guaranteed to win the match..

Edited November 4, 2019 by Fellow-Canadian

[Raansu]

The only thing more ridiculous than this title is how good stunlocking people to death from stealth is. Being able to do insane damage is one thing, but being able to do it while your opponent eats 2 chained stuns really breaks the balance in PVP. Classes that do insane damage need to be squishy. Classes that can stunlock others have their burst tempered so that others have a chance to respond. Otherwise, it's not fair and it's also boring when you can melt defenceless players.

 

In the past scoundrels/ops had a knockdown/stun on their backblast that was deemed to be way too strong of a burst+stun combo. It was changed so K.O interrupts and roots. See where this might be headed? Either some Assassin gear pieces need a balance check or something like Assassins loses their stun from stealth and instead get a root. The stunlock and strong burst combo is too good. Way too good.

 

It was called shoot first and it was amazing and to this day I'm still mad at BW for taking it out. There was nothing wrong with that skill, just bads being bad.

[Cupelixx]

Well the points you raised aren't wrong, but some are just not good arguements because they're too generic. The devil is in the details. You're using vague anecdotes that can be true for anything. You need to make a point about the distinctions between classes.

 

I get what you're saying. But I can only make general arguments when the problem is not well-defined. I think we can both agree that 'stunlock' is busted by DCDs and know-how. You might not always have DCDs or know-how against this tactic. What matters to me is that the premise of "an assassin gets the drop on you and you're dead 100% of the time" is false. So in this case, what exactly is the problem? I think it's important to define this so more discussion can happen on it. Also, the parameters should not just be "I died to it" or "this feels too strong".

 

For example: Assassins are screwed because because they can be kited. That's true for any melee. If you want to make a case for assassins, you need to explain how assassins are more screwed than other melee classes in order to justify the current insane opener.

 

I don't see how more specificity here enhances my argument. I don't know that an assassin is more or less screwed than say...a mara outside of melee range. Both classes can close gaps. But the same general argument works for maras. They have a burst window just like sins do. If you know how to break it, they're out of luck. This is true against any class you face in PVP. My point is, it usually comes down to cooldowns. There are going to be times where your DCDs are not up. In those situations, you're vulnerable to the burst window of ANY class. I don't see how any class' burst window being strong when the opponent doesn't have their DCDs should qualify that class for a nerf. You can't just nerf a class for PVP because there are times you won't be prepared for it.

 

Also, the suggestion that assassin burst and control is balanced because anyone can pop a cooldown is assuming every class exerts the exact same pressure and responds in the same way. You have to say for each class what the impact is.

 

I mean...it kind of is the same though. How every other class' burst window is affected by DCDs is not relevant. It may be interesting to sim it all out. Note here that I'm not saying "getgud" in the pejorative sense. But knowing when to use which of your DCDs against other classes is a big deal. Having this knowledge (and available, relevant DCD) allows you to take the wind out of your opponent's sails. We don't have to theorycraft every other class' situation against each other to know that this is true.

 

To elaborate on that:

 

If you look at 5.0 it was universally accepted Maras and snipers were the best DPS. Mercs too I suppose if you want to factor in dcds. Now, because every class has a cooldown to pop, would you say the level of effectiveness against maras is equivalent to the same level as lightning sorcs? Different classes mean the effectiveness is different. A Mara can be reduced to good damage from really good damage while a lightning sorc would go from terrible damage to non-existent.

 

Right, but we're JUST talking about assassins here. Not every class' DCD is equally effective against all classes. But in this case, it doesn't matter. The basic idea here of escaping from an assassin's opener is two things:

 

1) Break stun

2) Establish range

 

That's it. I'm not talking about DCDs that directly reduce damage, I'm JUST talking about breaking the opener. While those other DCDs might have a part to play over the rest of the fight, the biggest key is getting out of the assassin's range. Assassins could burst for 1 million DPS, but it counts for nothing if they can't actually hit you. Everyone has a stun break, that takes care of #1. For 2, everyone has mobility tools. You have rocket out, other sins have force speed, ops have roll, etc. It doesn't matter HOW other classes establish range, it only matters that they don't just sit there and take it.

 

Fast forward to 6.0 assassins you can't just say pop a cooldown and you'll be fine. You must talk about how strong the assassin is in the opener because that cooldown's effectiveness is relative to the class you use it against.

 

But why? To turn things upside-down let's talk about one class vs another. If I'm a darkness sin, going against a sniper who has entrench up, I can't force pull them, I can't overload them, if I sprint up, they can use cover pulse and fling me back. Sprint is back up so I run in. But now they can shield, apply a slow on me and roll away. If I get close again they can phasewalk. They can do this all while raining HUGE hits on me until I'm dead. Should we nerf snipers?

 

No matter how good the theory is, you should occasionally look at the results.

 

I don't think anyone would reasonably deny this.

 

As an example, when 3.0 came out Bioware radically overhauled the tactics and assault specs for Vanguards and gave them the more modern version of tactics and plasmatech. 3.0 tactics was a monster. Unparalleled burst and shoulder missiles firing every .25sec. When you pop your crit cooldown, anybody you went after died. It took literally no skill to execute and it didn't matter what your opponent was doing. The AOE damage was also out of control, the cooldown for mortar volley was reduced for tactics so much that you could continuously cast it for as long as you had ammo. The single target damage and stuns became so overwhelming you just didn't survive it. This class became universally accepted by all PVPers as way too strong. There were defenders of its OPness too at the time because the class was a little squishy.

 

So, let's apply your argument's logic to something else. If you just keep the 3.0 vanguard at range they can't hurt you. Just learn to play and they aren't overpowered. Or just pop a cooldown at the start and the scary vanguard isn't so scary and therefore the class is balanced.

 

Bioware did tone things down eventually, but it still wasn't enough. Tactics Vanguards were still blowing people up. It was so bad I stopped playing my vanguard because it wasn't fun. People had no response that could stop me and I was stacking bodies as no other class could. It's much more satisfying to play a class that is balanced or suboptimal because when you killed a vanguard you know it's because you outplayed them.

 

Anyways, your points make sense at first glance but when you apply the logic they don't hold up well. 3.0 Vanguards ruined an entire expansion meta because they just stacked the top of every scoresheet with massive damage and a ridiculous amount of kills. The team with the most Vanguards was almost always guaranteed to win the match..

 

It would be foolish to deny that things have been broken and imbalanced in this game before. But this is not a fair comparison. The sin stealth opener does have a counter which any class can perform. They don't get to sidle up, press 2 buttons and win 100% of the time, especially if the opponent is paying attention.

 

I'm not saying this is your train of thought specifically. But it seems like a lot of people's attitude in PVP is that they must be able to defend against every attack they receive 100% of the time, or the game is broken. You have to be vulnerable sometimes. If I hit all of my DCDs to not die to a sniper, is the mara that just killed me in need of a nerf because he leapt over and blew me up in 4 seconds?

 

Nobody likes losing. Stealth is always perceived as a cheap shot and well...it is. It feels bad for someone to jump behind you and beat you down. But I'm still wondering how many people complaining about this situation genuinely care about PVP balance, and how many are mad because they got taken down by the bad assassin using cheap tactics they didn't know how to defend against.

 

Honest question if we're going to compare other classes. Snipers have a huge number of ways to keep melee classes at bay while dishing out huge damage. Does the sniper need to be nerfed?

Edited November 4, 2019 by Cupelixx

[DaddyDespacito]

If you think Deception is "overpowered" I have something for you. https://imgur.com/a/XSWnsec

Tunnelled by Moq (Season 10 Top 3 sin) and Techniques (one of the best deception players I've seen on SF). Point is that Deception's sustained DPS is so garbage that no matter how good the player is, they can lose to a hatred sin taking 8.4 mil damage on 15 deaths... If you think deception is too good, maybe the best route is to get better at your own spec. For the record, deception swaps 100% loses to PT pressure in 4s. In regs, a few good DoT spec players (or even just one if the healer(s) are not prepared) will wipe a team before a decep sin (or 3 for that matter) can kill them. Example: https://imgur.com/gallery/rLljdgV

Edited November 6, 2019 by DaddyDespacito

[JediMasterAlex]

If you think Deception is "overpowered" I have something for you. https://imgur.com/a/XSWnsec

Tunnelled by Moq (Season 10 Top 3 sin) and Techniques (one of the best deception players I've seen on SF). Point is that Deception's sustained DPS is so garbage that no matter how good the player is, they can lose to a hatred sin taking 8.4 mil damage on 15 deaths... If you think deception is too good, maybe the best route is to get better at your own spec. For the record, deception swaps 100% loses to PT pressure in 4s. In regs, a few good DoT spec players (or even just one if the healer(s) are not prepared) will wipe a team before a decep sin (or 3 for that matter) can kill them. Example: https://imgur.com/gallery/rLljdgV

 

Your conclusion might be right. But number farming regs screenshots are utterly meaningless and not proof of anything I'm afraid.