Planned Balance Changes for 7.1.1

[ZUHFB]

6 hours ago, DarthEnrique said:

Why is it the minority who don't provide proof of their claims is the ones listened to and then claiming they are giving feedback when they're not. Well, I won't be playing my lightning sorc/telekinetic sage now thanks to bioware making them unviable in NiM and HM... sigh

Provide proof lightning isn't viable then. Oh, wait - it is viable. 

Dominique HM: https://parsely.io/parser/operations/lady-dominique/8/VM/dps/all/lightning/all/live/0/
Brontes MM: https://parsely.io/parser/operations/dread-master-brontes/8/MM/dps/all/lightning/all/live/1/
Apex MM: https://parsely.io/parser/operations/apex-vanguard/8/MM/dps/all/lightning/all/live/1/

So aight, there are parses. These parses are absolutely not bad, the burns in brontes were totally fine too. The truth is that lightning is still very viable just as I said, there are bosses like izax on that lightning isn't viable, but even without nerfs they wouldn't be viable. That's just not how the fight works. Lightning never really is a DPS carry class, and it's burst ranged so it isn't supposed to be one, if it were why play any other class? 

Again, like damage is not the thing that made lightning strong before. It was that lightnings DR was INSANE and ABSOLUTELY broken, this and DF were why lightning was above madness in almost all of PvE content. It did get nerfed because of that. I'm not just saying things, lightning was broken, it got nerfed - now it get nerfed again. Not because it's too good, but because it was played in an unintended way. It doing less damage is just a side effect, a side effect that effects so called "progress groups", but then again why progress in an suboptimal group setup? It's not that sorc is bad for progress, it's just that PT / Mara is better and with playing sorc the player is holding their team back, no matter the DPS. Was the case in 7.1, is the case now. 

And before someone says "hurr durr they got carried by their team" I know some of the people that uploaded personally and lightning is not even close to being their main class, they are pretty chill and don't sweat DPS so if someone really wanted to they could probably beat that easily.

Again like no hate for lightning mains or anything. Sucks being nerfed, but it is what it is.

[ZUHFB]

57 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

Yeah. I feel like this game has turned from learning how to utilize any class in any content into learning how to play specific meta classes to clear content. The rest of the classes don't matter anymore and it makes the endgame really boring. 

 

There should be sort of a warning in the character creation screen when people try to create characters that won't be viable for endgame, so that they wouldn't waste time on learning it if endgame is what they want to do eventually.

So why are classes like Rage or Fury that do good DPS still not great in PvE endgame? Oh, right - obliterate exists. But Fury is very viable in PvP endgame, can't just say it's not viable in endgame and ignore PvP completely. There is more to endgame than raids.

[DeannaVoyager]

4 hours ago, ZUHFB said:

It doing less damage is just a side effect, a side effect that effects so called "progress groups", but then again why progress in an suboptimal group setup? It's not that sorc is bad for progress, it's just that PT / Mara is better and with playing sorc the player is holding their team back, no matter the DPS. Was the case in 7.1, is the case now. 

 

 

And that's the problem with the game right now. Progression raiding with multiple classes has turned into forcing people into specs they don't want to play, and if they don't want to do that, they are holding their team back, as you say. That means the spec is not viable. 

People should be able to play whatever class or spec they want and still be able to kill the harder bosses. That's what used to make raiding fun. Now it's just "does anyone still have PT/mara who's not locked"?

 

They removed stealth out in ops, because people were using cloak to cheese some mechanics. That was no different from what PT/VG are doing now: they are cheesing stuff instead of actually doing the mechanics like they are supposed to be done. Like here: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/925451-r4-story-lady-dom-update/?do=findComment&comment=9725452

 

 

[ZUHFB]

42 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

And that's the problem with the game right now. Progression raiding with multiple classes has turned into forcing people into specs they don't want to play, and if they don't want to do that, they are holding their team back, as you say. That means the spec is not viable. 

To me that is not the same. A progress oriented team just wants to kill the boss, a team who has one tricks is a fun raiding group and has nothing to do with progression - but that is my opinion.

42 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

People should be able to play whatever class or spec they want and still be able to kill the harder bosses. That's what used to make raiding fun. Now it's just "does anyone still have PT/mara who's not locked"?

I disagree with the fundamentals here, I do not believe it is possible to have bosses be hard and every class be viable at the same time. It never used to be the case.

43 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

They removed stealth out in ops, because people were using cloak to cheese some mechanics. That was no different from what PT/VG are doing now: they are cheesing stuff instead of actually doing the mechanics like they are supposed to be done. Like here: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/925451-r4-story-lady-dom-update/?do=findComment&comment=9725452

Except most of this still works. You can still cancel casts and cheese stuff, it was a change exclusive to removing stealth rez. If they were to remove rebounder a lot of people would struggle to kills bosses. I cower in fear if I imagine Nahut without rebounders.

[xxSHOONYxx]

On 10/21/2022 at 1:40 AM, MartiuSartorius said:

I basicly agree that there is no need to make dot specs superior to burst specs, but for different reasons. Almost every dot spec has some kind of burst capability to meet current dps check in pve right now and there are no very short dps checks anymore

To play a dot class correctly or to its fully potential it needs more depth than the simple burst spec rotation. Because of how dot specs work their attacks deal less damage on avarage than other classes but the dots damage + their normal skills damage evens it out or even puts it a bit above. Issue comes when adds/boss dies beore the full duration of a dot, you need to calculate/guess in how many seconds the add/boss will die (which is harder when you have to take into account 7 more people) to know when to refresh the dots and when not to, and when you don't have to reapply dots you do less damage than burst specs. That would apply more to pyro, madness, lethality and IO, classes their dot have no cooldown and when target swapping you have to reapply dots, which their dots are low initial damage as well, so you have a low initial and scaling damage and lower end damage

Then there are other dot specs like virulence where cull is practically worthless if dots are not on the target so you are forced to reapply dots which is even less damage at the end

Then there is juggernaut, whith their dots comming from long cooldown abilities which the damage loss would be less than the other 2 and they just have to continue with the rotation when target swapping beause of it

And then there is annahilation which right now is hard to call it a dot spec, force rend under berserk is basically a burst attack with a lingering dot damage, rupture is refreshed by other attacks like most of other burst specs dots (ap/lightning), and deadly saber which empowers other attaks, a class that the only dot has to reapply is one and once if you play it correctly.

 

On 10/19/2022 at 5:31 AM, SpikeSaber said:

btw nice job on lightning balance, it does less dps than in 7.0 now Well played , thanks for listening to our feedback. Perfect balance between Arsenal,Marksman&Lightning. All 3 specs are rock bottom tier.

At the end of the day the classes that were not nerfed got a buff beacuse of the relic changes, so specs like marksman and arsenal deal more damage than 7.1, lightning damage was taken down as a burst ranged spec is intended for the designe they have in mind, other classes that got a nerf their damage barely changed with the relic change, and warrior classes got even stronger due to relic changes, which is the point i personally don't like

 

14 hours ago, DarthEnrique said:

Lightning sorcs/telekinetic sage on there now cause they won't be in HM and NiMs now

You can literally bring any class you want for NiM outside of gods, the dps requierements to do NiM are so low with the 7.1 hp nerf is not even funny. It's more of a mechanics check and if someone can't do that with their favorite class they won't be able to do it on any class. 
Of course there would be classes/specs that are ideal for a certain boss to make it easier on the team, but that has always and forever been the case. I every class would be meta the boss designe would either be very bland and boring or every class would do the same with just different animations and also bland and boring

Edited October 23, 2022 by xxSHOONYxx

[DeannaVoyager]

16 hours ago, ZUHFB said:

To me that is not the same. A progress oriented team just wants to kill the boss, a team who has one tricks is a fun raiding group and has nothing to do with progression - but that is my opinion.

 

If certain meta classes are required to kill some bosses, like it is now, it means progression raiding has turned into forcing people to learn classes and specs they don't want to play, just as I said. Everyone should be allowed to come on their main and still be viable.  They aren't now. 

 

Quote

I disagree with the fundamentals here, I do not believe it is possible to have bosses be hard and every class be viable at the same time. It never used to be the case.

 

It was possible in 5.x and it was mostly possible in 6.x. Can't say from older content because I was only running sm then, but I've seen some old kill videos and they seemed to have other classes than PT's and marauders there too.

 

Quote

Except most of this still works. You can still cancel casts and cheese stuff, it was a change exclusive to removing stealth rez. If they were to remove rebounder a lot of people would struggle to kills bosses. I cower in fear if I imagine Nahut without rebounders.

 

And that is the problem: mechanics that make a specific class, or stacking specific classes mandatory should be removed from the game completely. Or just remove all the classes that are not supposed to do endgame so that people won't accidentally start to play them.

[ZUHFB]

3 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

If certain meta classes are required to kill some bosses, like it is now, it means progression raiding has turned into forcing people to learn classes and specs they don't want to play, just as I said. Everyone should be allowed to come on their main and still be viable.  They aren't now. 

Is it really a progression team then? Either you want to kill the boss asap with as little trouble as possible or you want to have fun playing the right class. The fun in progression raiding comes from the people you play with, not the classes. After you raid for a while all the classes are the same anyway, not like someone would have to be a genius to play leth or something.

Not all team comps were every viable and they shouldn't be. In 5 and 6.X it wasn't possible to bring everywhere, let's say styrak, let's say masterblaster etc. Some bosses just require a team to work together, you know - raiding? But I doubt that's what you meant, so just talking raw numbers now - oh wait, it's still the same. Snave once said that he played concealment in his izax prenerf kill and "outparsed everyone on concealment", concealment wasn't bad at this point - but to any person that raids this statement is obviously wrong and cannot be the truth. For a class like concealment it will NEVER be good, or viable on izax, or nahut or whatever. It's not terrible on Apex though! 

Truth is that all classes have their bosses, some work some don't. Quad PT doesn't kill apex, and they shouldn't.

10 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

It was possible in 5.x and it was mostly possible in 6.x. Can't say from older content because I was only running sm then, but I've seen some old kill videos and they seemed to have other classes than PT's and marauders there too.

Yeah, because back in the day people were garbage. If they would bring back Deposer and Conquerer with the balance from back then do you really think it would be harder than the current GC? I don't think so. Look at the 7Stuck worldfirst brontes kill - it's terrible, I know some of the people involved in that kill and I can confirm that they share this opinion, people were less experienced, previously, they had less knowledge and that's why you see those classes. Sniper will never be better on hateful than PT/Mara, it just doesn't have the kit to do that - on world first hateful people didn't know what the boss does, so why not want a sniper shield? In 6.0 specifically everything was viable because content was easy, same for 5.X. So, as I already said MULTIPLE times: Either you have easy peasy content or you have some classes being less good than others, which isn't a problem. The problem is it is always pyro and anni. 

15 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

And that is the problem: mechanics that make a specific class, or stacking specific classes mandatory should be removed from the game completely. Or just remove all the classes that are not supposed to do endgame so that people won't accidentally start to play them

Absolutely not. I can see where you're coming from but I want my choice of which tank to bring matter so we can have a decent composition. I want to play sin+pt instead of double pt not because I want to cheese something, but because I want to kill the boss. All classes have their bosses, except operative DPS, but that one is S-Tier in PvP - which btw, is also endgame.

I do not think that it can be called progression raiding with someone brings an operative dps, and that's just the truth. No, buffing operative doesn't solve this, operative doesn't have a kit to deal with damage taken, but it does in PvP and it's already S-Tier then. Balancing is very hard and it cannot be done. If someone thinks they can solve it answer this question: How much DPS should marauder do less if they spec into predation? Or in other words, to how much damage is predation equal. Maybe then people will realize that balancing is a very hard thing and with devs not playing the game it's next to impossible.

[Nee-Elder]

8 hours ago, ZUHFB said:

 Maybe then people will realize that balancing is a very hard thing and with devs not playing the game it's next to impossible.

I agree with you on the whole  "balance is eternally elusive"  part , but ...well.... just to dispell this common misnomer/complaint people always have:

Speaking from experience (when i worked on another SW-themed MMO) ,  most Devs (coders)  rarely ever PLAY their own games.   They don't have time, since they're too busy  coding.

The playing & testing of the game is actually the job of  QA (Quality Assurance) department.

Now, if you wanna say  BioWare's  QA Team is  lacking (or non-existent)  then that's another topic.  And possibly a very valid one.   Not exactly sure  because none of us know exactly where/why BioWare  decisions ultimately come from. ( metrics? polls?  influencers? forums? PTS feedback? EA bosses? QA tests? ... All of the above?  )

Edited October 24, 2022 by Nee-Elder
Reason: good solid consistant QA is very hard to find

[Exocor]

23 hours ago, ZUHFB said:

If they were to remove rebounder a lot of people would struggle to kills bosses. I cower in fear if I imagine Nahut without rebounders.

 

As someone who killed Nahut the regular way back when it was new content... It is not that hard. People will adapt and the groups on the top will still clear everything. It's just that we go the route of least resistance. Why should we field DPS with low sustained DPS and - for the specific encounter - no helpful raid utility if we can do otherwise?

 

Completely unrelated to that: I think, with the Boss HP and Damage nerf a few months ago, the Gear level hike and the relics proc fix, it should be possible to kill all bosses with all classes, given that the other 7 people in the group play the best possible option. But one thing is for sure: If you raid twice a week in a regular hardmare group (the group being on the edge between hardmode and nightmare), you pretty much won't be able to clear everything with your set class if that class is not FOTM. You will miss practice, experience and the raid environment required to kill those high-end bosses. And that leads to a very simple thing: You're not good enough. People should stop whining to Bioware about not being able to kill content when the reason is sitting in front of their own screen.

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Exocor

[ZUHFB]

9 minutes ago, Exocor said:

As someone who killed Nahut the regular way back when it was new content... It is not that hard. People will adapt and the groups on the top will still clear everything. It's just that we go the route of least resistance. Why should we field DPS with low sustained DPS and - for the specific encounter - no helpful raid utility if we can do otherwise?

it should be possible to kill all bosses with all classes, given that the other 7 people in the group play the best possible option. 

Well, the boss slaps way more now - a slice will do about 210k which provided it's a solo tank will be hard to survive. When the boss was really overtuned I solo tanked it and there is no shot someone can solo tank that without rebounders. In 5.X or 6.X I'd agree with you completely, but in 7.0 it was - even with a perfect comp... probably beatable. 

Yes, if the other people play fotm you can take a sniper or something since the marauder (in perfect comp) could always be replaced and it's just there for predation and healing, since stealth scan is now buffed PT's could scan each other and someone could play engineering or something. But that wasn't really my point, I was thinking about something like 4 IO mercs which all have no stun and thus no way of doing a turret.

[Aethyriel]

On 10/23/2022 at 10:24 AM, ZUHFB said:

Provide proof lightning isn't viable then. Oh, wait - it is viable. 

Dominique HM: https://parsely.io/parser/operations/lady-dominique/8/VM/dps/all/lightning/all/live/0/
Brontes MM: https://parsely.io/parser/operations/dread-master-brontes/8/MM/dps/all/lightning/all/live/1/
Apex MM: https://parsely.io/parser/operations/apex-vanguard/8/MM/dps/all/lightning/all/live/1/

So aight, there are parses. These parses are absolutely not bad, the burns in brontes were totally fine too. The truth is that lightning is still very viable just as I said, there are bosses like izax on that lightning isn't viable, but even without nerfs they wouldn't be viable. That's just not how the fight works. Lightning never really is a DPS carry class, and it's burst ranged so it isn't supposed to be one, if it were why play any other class? 

 

'Not bad' and 'totally fine' is possibly the best thing you can say about the spec right now. Playing Lightning instead of virtually any other spec is just making it harder on the group while adding virtually no benefit outside of maybe the super amazing Sorc raid buff. Spamming Chain Lightning during Conduits and then being 6k dps behind 3rd placed DPS on Domi in Burn is your idea of 'viable'? If you replace the Sorc with virtually any other DPS - is the group better or worse? And on what boss would be answer actually be 'worse' right now? Should the goal from a design standpoint not be to carve out some niche where every spec is at times more viable and at others not as viable (because being always equally viable on all encounters is too much to ask for really).

Specs like Lightning were always nice for people who weren't the greatest players to bring to a raid. They never played any mechanics, they just did some solid DPS and it was fine having them along if you liked the person and wanted to play with them. Now, the spec is such hot garbage that you're severely hurting yourself bringing these people along. That sucks. Because they're not gonna be able to figure out how to effectively play a more 'complicated' class with resource management or important proccs you have to hit on cooldown manually. Well, unless that guy is then still being carried by a really good team. But that can't be the goal.

And that's not even considering how rewarding the hard cast mechanic was where if you placed yourself well and managed to cast HO on CD, you got a DPS benefit. You could play without, do less damage and have a much easier time but you were rewarded for putting in more effort. That was just fun to play. The current iteration is neither effective nor fun to play (in PVE, Idk about PVP).

[Exocor]

22 minutes ago, ZUHFB said:

Well, the boss slaps way more now - a slice will do about 210k which provided it's a solo tank will be hard to survive. When the boss was really overtuned I solo tanked it and there is no shot someone can solo tank that without rebounders. In 5.X or 6.X I'd agree with you completely, but in 7.0 it was - even with a perfect comp... probably beatable. 

Yes, if the other people play fotm you can take a sniper or something since the marauder (in perfect comp) could always be replaced and it's just there for predation and healing, since stealth scan is now buffed PT's could scan each other and someone could play engineering or something. But that wasn't really my point, I was thinking about something like 4 IO mercs which all have no stun and thus no way of doing a turret.

 

I've not done Nahut for quite some time - I came back from a long break just recently. But didn't Failure kill Nahut before the Gear-hike to 340? With that new equipment and the relic-buff shouldn't it be possible to play it regularly with 4 DPS and 2 Tanks?

Playing completely without rebounder is obviously an entirely different thing. But having one or two rebounders on demand is different than planning to do one for every slice. Back in the day we still often had shroud and if not, at least one other damage-reducing DCD ready for that. But I don't want to judge that strategy before I haven't seen Nahut myself.

 

[ZUHFB]

3 minutes ago, Exocor said:

I've not done Nahut for quite some time - I came back from a long break just recently. But didn't Failure kill Nahut before the Gear-hike to 340? With that new equipment and the relic-buff shouldn't it be possible to play it regularly with 4 DPS and 2 Tanks?

Playing completely without rebounder is obviously an entirely different thing. But having one or two rebounders on demand is different than planning to do one for every slice. Back in the day we still often had shroud and if not, at least one other damage-reducing DCD ready for that. But I don't want to judge that strategy before I haven't seen Nahut myself.

No failure didn't, nobody did. They had the lowest pull and got to burn, but with two tanks it would've been questionable if they beat it at all. 

Oh yeah you can definitely take them without. As long as it's not all of them.

[DeannaVoyager]

8 hours ago, ZUHFB said:

Is it really a progression team then? Either you want to kill the boss asap with as little trouble as possible or you want to have fun playing the right class. The fun in progression raiding comes from the people you play with, not the classes. After you raid for a while all the classes are the same anyway, not like someone would have to be a genius to play leth or something.

 

 

It was a progression team before 7.0 and before tuning the content around certain meta classes. Nothing changed there, only the game is broken now and class balance is gone.

But: I totally agree that the fun comes from the people we play with. We are not having fun when people are being forced on classes they haven't played before. They don't have fun when they feel they are getting carried (which they totally are on some bosses), and the rest of us are not having fun when we have to wait for them to learn whatever class BW decides to "rebalance" next. We are also not having fun when we have to think about replacing those people from the team just because they haven't played certain classes before and their main classes are not viable anymore. 

But who knows, maybe you have a different definition for progression raiding. For me it's about learning the fights first (which you should be able to do on your main so you can focus on really learning it), then getting better at it until everything is one-shot, then get titles and mounts and eventually bring any class to the fight and still clear it.  That was doable before, but not anymore. 

As I said, they need to remove other classes from the game if people are not supposed to play them in endgame anymore. 

[xxSHOONYxx]

5 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

'Not bad' and 'totally fine' is possibly the best thing you can say about the spec right now. Playing Lightning instead of virtually any other spec is just making it harder on the group while adding virtually no benefit outside of maybe the super amazing Sorc raid buff. Spamming Chain Lightning during Conduits and then being 6k dps behind 3rd placed DPS on Domi in Burn is your idea of 'viable'? If you replace the Sorc with virtually any other DPS - is the group better or worse? And on what boss would be answer actually be 'worse' right now? Should the goal from a design standpoint not be to carve out some niche where every spec is at times more viable and at others not as viable (because being always equally viable on all encounters is too much to ask for really).

But not every class is supposed to be the best for every boss? That is how every boss is, in some bosses some classes are great or to the point of being indispensable.
And a sorc lightning is not in Dominique to do aoe damage, is to deal single target damage to the boss, if everyone just mindlessly aoe on conduits by the time they are broken with the drouks the boss is too high of hp making the other phases take longer, unless you knock drouks out which it still makes the boss ttk longer. In fact the most used strat for that boss is for 4 dps to use single target on boss and let all the aoe damage to go to the slam spam jug, if a lightning player does that he is just playing it wrong and selfish to their group and actually making it harder for the group and not because the person brought lightning.   
 

5 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

Specs like Lightning were always nice for people who weren't the greatest players to bring to a raid. They never played any mechanics, they just did some solid DPS and it was fine having them along if you liked the person and wanted to play with them

NiM right now is easy with the hp nerfs and any class can do it, and even then if it wasn't that easy those players have no place to do NiM, NiM is the hardest dificulty of the game in PvE, is not for people that don't put in the work to actually grow in skills and knowledge, if they did they could still do NiM with any class they want. And anything below NiM can be done by any class and with avarage skill level. 

 

3 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

It was a progression team before 7.0 and before tuning the content around certain meta classes. Nothing changed there, only the game is broken now and class balance is gone.

In 7.0 raids were more fun because they were actually close to "NiM" and some classes were not taken into it, but in 7.1 with health nerf new gear and relic change any class is viable for NiM, and if for some people it is not they are not at that level yet and changing specs will hardly change that since they would need to learn a new class. I'd rather take someone with their main that they know and are comfortable with the class than asking them to swap to something they don't know. 
The only boss in r4 that lightning MAY have no place right now is Dominique becacuse of the bug that is happening now, as far as i know only Farming Components, Failure and Butter were able to clear Dominique in this state. But at the end of the day is a bug and not how the boss is intended to work

 

3 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

and the rest of us are not having fun when we have to wait for them to learn whatever class BW decides to "rebalance" next. We are also not having fun when we have to think about replacing those people from the team just because they haven't played certain classes before and their main classes are not viable anymore

From my own experience if someone is kicked from a (NiM) team is not because they can only play this one class and it was nerfed, it is because their skill level is not at that level yet or to whatever the raid lead considers minimum for the team, they don't have the same drive/desire as the other 7 or they are always late or not making it to raid. As i said above, right now i would rather play with a main lightning sorc playing lightning than asking them to use a different class for any legacy NiM or R4.

Knowing how to play all dps classes at an okay level I still chose to play lightning for some specific bosses like watchdog, kanoth, huntmaster, apex and styrak, the class is still totally fine and the top range burst dps, even higher than AP right now, a melee burst spec. Is not because i like lightning, i find it boring actually, I use it because it is very good for those fights and i want my teams to succeed. No one likes their main being nerfed, but there is a huge difference between a class being nerfed and making it "unviable".
 

3 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

For me it's about learning the fights first (which you should be able to do on your main so you can focus on really learning it), then getting better at it until everything is one-shot, then get titles and mounts and eventually bring any class to the fight and still clear it.  That was doable before, but not anymore. 

It still is very much doable, especially for NiM legacy Dxun and R4 HM (without dom bug) and if you can't you still have progression to do on your last point. For most progression is not a race, and for those that is you don't see what happens behind the curtain with all the progression they do on PTS and on live they clear it in the same day or week, normal progression groups can't compare to them because the time invested is just way different.

[Aethyriel]

14 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

But not every class is supposed to be the best for every boss? That is how every boss is, in some bosses some classes are great or to the point of being indispensable.
And a sorc lightning is not in Dominique to do aoe damage, is to deal single target damage to the boss, if everyone just mindlessly aoe on conduits by the time they are broken with the drouks the boss is too high of hp making the other phases take longer, unless you knock drouks out which it still makes the boss ttk longer. In fact the most used strat for that boss is for 4 dps to use single target on boss and let all the aoe damage to go to the slam spam jug, if a lightning player does that he is just playing it wrong and selfish to their group and actually making it harder for the group and not because the person brought lightning.   
 

I don't think you understood what I wrote - it's not about every class being the best for every boss all the time. It's about some specs being better here and there, so there's a point to them. An issue arises if some specs are simply never better or even equal to other specs which is where Ling is currently situated. It has nothing to offer that somebody else doesn't already do much better on any given encounter.

And I know that sorc AE DPS is pointless but the parse that was provided to show the viability of Ling has all their DPS from Chain Lightning spam on Conduits and then does next to no DPS on the boss ST during the burn. The point I was trying to make is that it shows how you might still be able to kill the boss with Ling, yes, but also - every other spec would have been better.

 

18 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

NiM right now is easy with the hp nerfs and any class can do it, and even then if it wasn't that easy those players have no place to do NiM, NiM is the hardest dificulty of the game in PvE, is not for people that don't put in the work to actually grow in skills and knowledge, if they did they could still do NiM with any class they want. And anything below NiM can be done by any class and with avarage skill level. 

It's easy for people who play well, yes. Of course you can simply say that people who only ever managed to play Lightning well and nothing else can go fork themselves and play HC. But not everyone can just learn new specs and perform well with them. Ofc they can go fork themselves as well. It's just not that easily done for people past 40 and when HC is too easy, you might want to play nim. It doesn't hurt anyone if they can reasonably perform on some easy to play class in that content. It used to be the case before the update.

This is not an issue for good raid groups. They don't have these issues. This is an issue for more casual players with some ambitions to play nim where some players could get by playing reasonably well enough as an easy to play spec like Ling which after the nerf is now quite the handicap for such groups. And I just don't see the point of it. I don't see the combination of range + burst being so useful on encounters that it warrants the lack of DPS (and sucky AOE damage to boot).

I personally don't care all that much, it doesn't affect me. I never really liked Lightning or Madness for that matter and the only time I busted it out was for the countless time we dragged someone through S&V Styrak survive back in the day, but why would anyone play Ling over a Sin these days on Styrak? Because it doesn't matter as it's easy is basically the only argument you could make.

[xxSHOONYxx]

2 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

An issue arises if some specs are simply never better or even equal to other specs which is where Ling is currently situated. It has nothing to offer that somebody else doesn't already do much better on any given encounter.

I gave some examples that lightning is still very good in some fights, styrak i prefer lightning than sin because of the range lightning has, huntmaster you needed classes with 35 meter range to do it easier (sniper and lightning), apex is great because of selfcleanse and ranged when its a bad fight to stack melees especially in 16 man, for watchdog and kanoth is still very good as a ranged spec and cleanse to help healers. 

 

2 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

And I know that sorc AE DPS is pointless but the parse that was provided to show the viability of Ling has all their DPS from Chain Lightning spam on Conduits and then does next to no DPS on the boss ST during the burn.

I didn't see the parses, thought it was what someone you knew did.

 

2 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

Of course you can simply say that people who only ever managed to play Lightning well and nothing else can go fork themselves and play HC. But not everyone can just learn new specs and perform well with them. Ofc they can go fork themselves as well. It's just not that easily done for people past 40 and when HC is too easy, you might want to play nim. It doesn't hurt anyone if they can reasonably perform on some easy to play class in that content. It used to be the case before the update.

As i said NiM is supposed to be the hardest content in the game, the designe of them is supposed for them not to be easy. It should be able to be done with any class as it is, but not to be easy. It may sound harsh but some people just don't have the time to get to NiM level, and those that lack the time but are still in groups it will take them longer to do it but it is still very possible. If you make something very easy for some that are not at that level, those that are already at that level or above they will find it boring, and the people with "less skill" once they reach to the next level will find it boring. Point in case 7.0 and 7.1 ops, hated 7.0 gearing but the ops where actually fun, in 7.1 they bore me to death because they are too easy now. 
 

2 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

I don't see the combination of range + burst being so useful on encounters that it warrants the lack of DPS (and sucky AOE damage to boot).

I can't speak for pvp or what the devs ideas are behind, what i found playing is this. 
On target swapping any burst class will have an advantage, on low health targets dot classes have to think if its warranted to reaply dots or not depending on how fast the target will die, if the dots are not applied or they don't last the max duration the dot spec will deal less damage than a burst spec because their normal skills (none dot abilities) deal less damage than burst spec skills. Now if it is a high hp target swap dot classes will need to redot the target, which also begins with a starting low damage since dot damage skills have a low initial damage and then it starts to ramp up, and because of the same dot/time issue dot classes can have less damage at the end of a fight compared to burst classes.

Lightning is ranged burst so lets compare it to something like virulence that is ranged dot, virulence is a pretty simple rotation too, 2 dots, weakening blast, cull and lethal shot. Virulence on target swapping is forced to reapply dots because cull damage relies heavly on them, if they are not applied virulence can only really use lethal shots or series of shots. Where lightning on this case does have a dot, but is applied once and is auto refreshed by other skills. Burst classes have more burst on demand, you see their dps graph and they are very spikey (https://parsely.io/parser/view/710845/0 top lightning parse) with very high spikes like 140-120k damage and the other spikes on the 100k, dot classes have some burst too but if you are caught on a burst window when you have to reapply dots your may fail the burst dps check, their graphs have some spikes but outside of them they are more mid damage (https://parsely.io/parser/view/710493/0 top viru parse) with spikes of 95-85k damage and the other spikes on the 60k. On fights with constant target swapping or when one in the group is asked to do adds like in brontes (fingers) burst will do better than dot for it.

Now ranged burst vs melee dot, lets say lightning and pyro. Pyro has a gap close but it consumes a gcd, and the next two skills are the dots so pyro does on avarage 20-30k damage on the first almost 4 seconds. Now lightning, afliction and lets say for the sake fo the argument you have thundering blast available and thundering procs halted offensive, in 4 seconds you do around 160k to 100k if nothing crits (maybe on the 60-80k is thundering blast is not up, but the same argument could be done about pyro if searing wave and immolate are still not usable on the next 2 to 3 gcd so the overall damage on lightning on the first 5 to 6 gcd will be greater than pyro).

As an example is cloack phase in brontes, melee have to go from one droid to another, jumping and wasting a gcd or running and do nothing until you reach the next droid, while ranged can stay in the middle next to brontes and barely moving just to stay ahead of the lightning and swap from droid to droid easy and without downtime. Or on styrak, after chained manifestation that the 4 ghost adds spawn, if you are a melee you use your gap closer to reach it first you kill it and then have to run to help another or maybe even 2  i tanks are slow. And then you probably have to use gap closer so another low damage gcd on jumping to where the boss will spawn while on ranged you could very much stay on the middle with everything on your range.

But doub the nerf was soleley because of pve, especially lightning and ap, pvp had a lot to do about it if i had to guess. But my pvp knowledge is non existent like to comment on it

Edited October 25, 2022 by xxSHOONYxx

[DeannaVoyager]

9 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

But not every class is supposed to be the best for every boss? That is how every boss is, in some bosses some classes are great or to the point of being indispensable.
And a sorc lightning is not in Dominique to do aoe damage, is to deal single target damage to the boss, if everyone just mindlessly aoe on conduits by the time they are broken with the drouks the boss is too high of hp making the other phases take longer, unless you knock drouks out which it still makes the boss ttk longer. In fact the most used strat for that boss is for 4 dps to use single target on boss and let all the aoe damage to go to the slam spam jug, if a lightning player does that he is just playing it wrong and selfish to their group and actually making it harder for the group and not because the person brought lightning.   
 

NiM right now is easy with the hp nerfs and any class can do it, and even then if it wasn't that easy those players have no place to do NiM, NiM is the hardest dificulty of the game in PvE, is not for people that don't put in the work to actually grow in skills and knowledge, if they did they could still do NiM with any class they want. And anything below NiM can be done by any class and with avarage skill level. 

 

In 7.0 raids were more fun because they were actually close to "NiM" and some classes were not taken into it, but in 7.1 with health nerf new gear and relic change any class is viable for NiM, and if for some people it is not they are not at that level yet and changing specs will hardly change that since they would need to learn a new class. I'd rather take someone with their main that they know and are comfortable with the class than asking them to swap to something they don't know. 
The only boss in r4 that lightning MAY have no place right now is Dominique becacuse of the bug that is happening now, as far as i know only Farming Components, Failure and Butter were able to clear Dominique in this state. But at the end of the day is a bug and not how the boss is intended to work

 

From my own experience if someone is kicked from a (NiM) team is not because they can only play this one class and it was nerfed, it is because their skill level is not at that level yet or to whatever the raid lead considers minimum for the team, they don't have the same drive/desire as the other 7 or they are always late or not making it to raid. As i said above, right now i would rather play with a main lightning sorc playing lightning than asking them to use a different class for any legacy NiM or R4.

Knowing how to play all dps classes at an okay level I still chose to play lightning for some specific bosses like watchdog, kanoth, huntmaster, apex and styrak, the class is still totally fine and the top range burst dps, even higher than AP right now, a melee burst spec. Is not because i like lightning, i find it boring actually, I use it because it is very good for those fights and i want my teams to succeed. No one likes their main being nerfed, but there is a huge difference between a class being nerfed and making it "unviable".
 

It still is very much doable, especially for NiM legacy Dxun and R4 HM (without dom bug) and if you can't you still have progression to do on your last point. For most progression is not a race, and for those that is you don't see what happens behind the curtain with all the progression they do on PTS and on live they clear it in the same day or week, normal progression groups can't compare to them because the time invested is just way different.

 

Aethyriel just posted pretty much everything I would have also said, so I'm not going to repeat it all. I'm just going to add something:

 

You are taking old NiMs now as an example of content that can be done with any class. While it's not completely true, it's close enough. I know what you mean. The mechanics of old NiMs don't require specific classes, apart from Styrak, and even Styrak leaves more options than R-4. However NiMs don't drop 340 gear, only R-4 does, and that one requires SPECIFIC META CLASSES that people haven't played before. 

 

Considering we have a few people in our team who haven't done NiM content before, but who can easily do the required numbers while watching their feet on their mains, I think it's too much to ask that they need to a) learn new classes b) learn new fights at the same time, when the rest of the raiding community only had to learn new fights when progging harder content for the first time. You are not telling them to "get better", you are telling them to "get better than we were" when we were doing harder content for the first time. When I started to do harder content, no-one asked me to learn a new class first, I could go with my main and everyone was happy. That's all I'm asking for these people now, because we are putting the newcomers into an impossible situation and I don't think that's fair.

 

Balance the classes OR the content so that people can bring any class they want to without handicapping the rest of the group. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ZUHFB]

8 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

The mechanics of old NiMs don't require specific classes, apart from Styrak, and even Styrak leaves more options than R-4

R-4 doesn't have much of an requirement either. I mean what doesn't work? 5 meele WD? 4 Meeles works, I've done that. We also had a 2 arsenal 1 vengeance 1 pyro 2 lightning IP-CPT prenerf and no, it isn't the overgear. The PT had a 328 GS. What else is there... ok now that Domi in bugged playing 3 PTs is kinda mandatory, I'll give you that. But apart from that I do not see the requirement at all. All the bosses are beatable with almost all the comps, styrak forces 4 knocks which can be pretty much of anything, but two inquisitor knocks are pretty much mandatory. 

Maybe... just maybe it's that... styrak has been out longer, people had more time to learn it and thus are better in that fight. R-4 is a nightmare for clickers but then again, so is every fight in general. I just think people need to learn their classes and then they wouldn't have to play powertech, and that's just the truth. 

"hurr burr what makes you assume they didn't?" oh geez idk, if they did do it why aren't they doing more damage? 

[Aethyriel]

11 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

Lightning is ranged burst so lets compare it to something like virulence that is ranged dot, virulence is a pretty simple rotation too, 2 dots, weakening blast, cull and lethal shot. Virulence on target swapping is forced to reapply dots because cull damage relies heavly on them, if they are not applied virulence can only really use lethal shots or series of shots.

I'll just quote this but it goes generally for all you've written. Your theory is perfectly sound. I'm not going to argue that. The issue is the practical aspect of it. There just really isn't all that much where it actually applies. For example, you argue for Ling being great on Styrak adds - but a Sin can just instantly leap to an add almost off gcd and gain e.g. 3 discharge stacks as burst or you can also range dot as hatred for example while closing in. On top of that, you have better defences when you're supposed to stand near an add, you can taunt + deflect styrak + dragon if need be with force shroud to avoid TB, you have an easy 10%+ DPS over Lightning and the same knockback. No reason to bring Ling over a sin ever. And as for Viru - the adds on Styrak have so little health you're fine just doing SoS / LS if you're not the only one playing them. But you also gain entrench for 2nd dragon phase + sniper shield, a near constant 30% dmg reduction, better debuff on boss and more DPS overall. And you can kick with 2 snipers just fine (I've been told, or even just one sniper depending on your dps). Why take Ling? It is doable, sure, but it's not better than the other options. it is strictly worse.

12 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

dot classes have some burst too but if you are caught on a burst window when you have to reapply dots your may fail the burst dps check, their graphs have some spikes but outside of them they are more mid damage

And if the Ling is at the part of the rotation where you've just fired TB and HO proc and have nothing else, then you also hit like a wet noodle. The spikes are theoretical - you don't always have those spikes on demand and they also suffer from some delay as you have to set up, depend on reck and have to apply a dot unless the add dies within 2 gcds anyway. But let's even take a mechanic add like Dxun 2nd boss, the pursuer droid, and check whether ling is actually better for that mechanic (not even the entire fight where it obviously gets obliterated with either crappy aoe or ST damage). I'd argue it's not - I'd argue a sniper in all specs performs better on the add since you can pick and choose your burst window without losing any major damage on other enemies since they're grouped (heck, with the burst tactical, it's not even close). I'd argue Madness outperforms with Shock finisher as well. Melee burst obviously outperforms, even Anni with the heavy hit from FR these days probably outperforms while also offering a bunch of other stuff for the rest of the encounter. So, even on a mechanic where range + burst would be what you'd like to have, the ranged burst spec underperforms massively (though I have no data to back that up seeing how there isn't a ling parse for the challenge).

The thing is: If ling does less DPS than other options, it has to have something going for it to offset this. And it simply doesn't have it. Not practically anyway - not in an actually useful way that goes beyond the theory of being slightly better at some ominously timed burst window of 4 seconds that just isn't there. Even when you need to burst down the final bomb in R 4 IP-CPT (which is the shortest burst window I can think of rn), a Viru sniper would be better as you can pre dot, same for an engi where you can also set up beforehand - maybe only Madness would perform worse given you probably want the DR instead of shock finisher? The spec has nothing to offer, not even baseline DPS and ease of play. And I simply don't see it justified in any way (except maybe PVP but apparently we both have no clue about that).

[DeannaVoyager]

On 10/25/2022 at 9:57 AM, ZUHFB said:

I just think people need to learn their classes and then they wouldn't have to play powertech, and that's just the truth. 

 

 

Dude, I literally just said they CAN play their mains: 

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/924749-planned-balance-changes-for-711/?do=findComment&comment=9725765 

Learn to read or stop commenting to my posts. I don't want to keep repeating the same stuff over and over again just because you aren't paying attention. 

[ZUHFB]

1 hour ago, DeannaVoyager said:

Dude, I literally just said they CAN play their mains: 

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/924749-planned-balance-changes-for-711/?do=findComment&comment=9725765 

Learn to read or stop commenting to my posts. I don't want to keep repeating the same stuff over and over again just because you aren't paying attention. 

It was targeted towards the R-4 comment, that is why that is quoted and nothing else.