Basic Quality of Life Passives for 7.0 Class Changes

[arunav]

I thought I'd leave a brief post about QoL passives that have been generally selcted in utilities (or in some cases even the trees from 1.0-2.x) and making some into choices with conflicts for optimal results in PVE or PVP, when forced to choose.

 

If at all possible, I think all types of players, from the most casual to the folks that put your design decisions to the test in NiM PVE and Ranked PVP prefer having certain types of QoL passives we've grown used to over the past 8-9.5 years to remain in place.

 

An example, since this PTS cycle introduced Sorcs and Assassins, is the cooldown on Force Speed. It just feels underwhelming not to have the reduced cooldown on Force Speed on Assassins as a given, like your character is still leveling and doesn't have all the utility points it needs on live. Another is the reduced cooldown on a character's stun break, which is something I often take on various classes.

 

Force Speed is used all the time in every type of content in the game, and it just makes playing less enjoyable to not have it available as we've become accustomed to. There are so many mobs in the open world that use stuns that having to wait longer for the break to come off cooldown, again, just makes the game less enjoyable.

 

These are just a couple of examples of QoL-type passives. I understand design choices must be made with high-level gameplay in mind, like Ranked PVP, but it's also important to consider the experience of most of your players as well. The reduction in abilities will already be a huge change for most folks. Changing some passives that make general gameplay less tedious into options may add to player frustrations.

 

Perhaps other posters can add more QoL passives to consider. I wrote this quickly and don't have any kind of comprehensive list in mind.

 

Thanks for reading.

[LordCamTheGreat]

When I made my post about the Assassin I did say that it should at least one of the two passives baked into it baseline. Ideally it would have a 15s cooldown while also breaking roots (both utilities) since dps assassins are potentially losing 2 of their 3 dcds if they don't choose them in the ability tree. Both are absolutely mandatory in PvP and arguably both are mandatory in PvE due to the sheer quantity of slows and roots in the game.

 

Personally, I don't think it should be baseline for Sorcerers (and I main a Sorc) because they are a ranged class that is not only keeping both whirlwind and electrocute, but also overload and phase walk. There should be a drawback to having that much cc on a ranged class that also has off healing. Cloud mind's 25% damage reduction should be a baseline passive - but then again, you need to opt into cloud mind for some reason despite it being your threat drop. That's another issue entirely right now.

 

Assassins could also do with having combat cloak provide a couple seconds of force shroud baseline.

 

 

For Guardians/Juggs, they should have the utility that reduces force charge's cooldown by 1.5 seconds whenever they are attacked. This is even more necessary considering that they are losing a lot of mobility options including blade blitz/ mad dash. Alternatively or alongside this, combat focus's movement speed boost utility could be added baseline.

 

Sentinels/Maras already got the main thing I would have wanted as a passive - building centering with their recharge out of combat. Sentinel need a lot more than just passives at this point honestly.

 

 

Snipers don't really need a passive as such - they need evasion and countermeasures to become two separate abilities again. Right now, your main dcd, threat drop, 75% move speed boost/root breaker and roll reset are combined inside ONE ability that you need to opt into. There's far too much overlap and instead, countermeasures should gain the move speed boost passive baseline + threat drop, with evasion becoming a level 70 choice (instead of orbital strike) and resetting roll.

 

Operatives could do with combat stealth providing a couple seconds of evasion baseline.

 

 

More or less comes down to making certain movement based passives baseline, allowing combat cloak to always work as intended and fixing the horrible situation we currently have with threat drops for sniper and sorc.