Planned Balance Changes for 7.1.1

[CorNightwind]

Hello everyone,

 

Here are some of the balance changes you can expect from 7.1.1. Note that all of this is subject to change.

 

Sniper / Gunslinger

Marksmanship / Sharpshooter

• Target Acquired / Illegal Mods now generates a charge of Laze Target / Smuggler’s Luck whenever it is activated.
  
• Lazer Focus / Lucky Thoughts no longer relies on critically hitting the target to lower the cooldown on Laze Target / Smuggler’s Luck but instead has a 50% chance to do so whenever dealing damage.
  

 

Sorcerer / Sage

 

Lightning / Telekinesis

• Reverberating Force - Critical hit damage bonus has been reduced to 12% down from 15%.
  
• Thundering Blast - Second arc of damage deals 20% of Turbulence's damage down from 25%.
  
• Storm watch damage decreased by 4%
  
• Halted Offensive cast time increased from 2.5 seconds to 3.0 seconds. Alacrity still affects cast time.
  
• Decrease Halted Offensive damage by 15%.
  
• Convection - Thundering Blast grants Reserved Darkness, making Dark Heal an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.
  

 

-Chris

 

Changes need to be made to bring the lower performing classes UP to the higher ones. Not a bunch of buff / nerf / lateral-changes.

 

Lightning and Marksman are 2 specs I very much enjoy playing. I can't run Marksman in story mode R4. Kudos to anyone out there who can, but I certainly can't. My Marksman without any augments can use Laze Target 3/4 times. This change will make it always available. It's a nice small buff, but isn't really the problem. Also if it's always available why not just be part of the base ability, but that's a different issue.

 

Marksman can't really move a lot due to all the hardcast abilities in it's rotation (It's a sniper. That feels ok.), but this makes it (IMO) unplayable against IP-CPT. You might be able to struggle through Watchdog but against all of Lord Kanoth's nihrot you're back having the same mobility problems. If the class lacks this much mobility then it needs to be able to REALLY toss out some serious dmg whenever it gets the chance to be stationary for a few seconds. Or if Laze Target instead of a dmg boost allowed you to cast any ability while moving, but that's getting into much broader changes.

 

As for Lightning Sorc, I just don't get the changes. They do fine on dmg, against single targets. In fights with multiple targets I definitely feel like I'm lagging behind other classes. This is just going to reduce my ability in the area where I was functional. And giving us a boost to Dark Heal, it's nice, but running any kind of remotely difficult content as a dps I can't really be giving up a couple GCDs to toss out some heals(Unless I'm missing something and this proc will be off GCD).

 

As it is right now story mode R4 is hard enough that nerfing a bunch of classes dmg output seems questionable. But the required DPS output for HM IP-CPT is so hard to hit as it is that people aren't even bringing tanks into the fight. That's a problem with the Operations design and not in our playstyles or classes as well as a real slap in the face to all of our amazing Tank players.

 

And for the record R4 is an amazingly fun OP! But the fact that there is a spec(Marksman) that basically can't run it, and that we're leaving our tanks behind just feels wrong. If some of these changes were because of PVP balance,(I don't play PVP so I don't know) then I think it's time to start having more abilities function differently against another player than they would against NPC's.

 

Anyway that's my rant on the subject. Hope everyone has a good evening =)

[TheCherryFamily]

Hello everyone,

 

Powertech / Advanced Prototype

Advanced Prototype

[*]Magnetic Blast / Tactical Surge damage reduced by 14%.

[*]Power Burst / High Yield Explosives mod stacks damage bonus reduced to 4% per stack down from 5% per stack. (total of 16% damage bonus to thermal det down from 20%).

[*]Serrated Blades damage reduced to 5% down from 15%. (combined into prototype rail)

[*]Blood Tracker / Triumph damage increase to bleeding targets is reduced to 3% down from 5%.

[*]Lingering Heat / Superheated Cells damage reduced by 50%.

[*]New Tactical: Powered Detonator (Burst)

Thermal Detonator remains dormant on the target for 12 seconds, and can be detonated by Magnetic Blast, Energy Burst or Rail Shot. Depending on which is used, a different effect is applied.

Magnetic Blast: Slows the target by 50% for 10 seconds.

Energy Burst: The cooldown of Rocket Punch is reset and your next Rocket Punch costs no heat.

Rail Shot: Your next Shoulder Cannon missile deals 20% more damage.

 

-Chris

 

why? AP didnt need so heavy of nerfs it was in a good spot, I Beg you to please rethink not just the AP nerfs but all of it.

 

First Im going to start with the good.

The Operative Kolto burst nerf was very warranted

The Buffs to Bodyguard sounds nice

And Im glad AP is getting a Tactical

The Pyro nerfs are good

 

Now, The Bad.

why are you nerfing several classes that don't even need nerfs, Madness was already underperforming but now Lighting is going to be underperforming as well.

With the Change to Hatreds BIS tactical their damage output will get seriously hampered

The AP changes Suck, Yes Pyro needs some changes but not AP, this class has already suffered enough without a (proper) tactical and now AP is going to start being on the lower tier of damage dealers.

Speaking of the AP tactical, I like the idea however the effects (at least 2 of them) are not the best. The Mag blast effect is useless in endgame PvE and the change from Power Burst finishing Thermals CD to rocket punches is a bit aggravating. If your not going to revert it due to balance concerns then please add a damage increase to the rocket punch.

If you were going to nerf classes I would suggest Mara they do need nerfs

The Replacement of Sin Tanks DR on Severing slash is not good and the root makes not a lot of sense to replace it with

I had mentioned it before but Madness needs a lot of buffing to make it viable again

and Finally, where is the arsenal buffs, I really want that class to be good again please that would be the thing I would look forward to the most.

 

 

 

I get it, you guys are trying to improve PvP and that is nice, however you are ( unintentionally) hurting the PvE players, I would really ask you to look back at these changes and go back to the drawing table. I do not mean any of this in anger towards you I just wanna see the game flourish more.

 

-Thank you,

Sharkise

[ArchingBeast]

7.1.1 Feedback: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

 

The Good

• 
   
  
• The intention for the healer changes is the right one, but it remains to be seen how the numbers turn out. fights like hateful entity, nahut, izax (esp.omnicannon) and mutant trandoshans (esp. ultimate hunter) are all fights that greatly rely on the operatives ability to single-handedly bring the group from almost dead to fully healthy, a rebalance for these fights and mechanics is definitely needed.
   
  
• The opearative dps and dcd changes are welcome, i especially like the AoE DR handling as its unique and creative
  

 

The Bad

• 
   
  
• The changes to marksman are a sidegrade, they do barely anything. Marksman needs a sizeable damage buff, it is by far the worst spec in the game right now. Even Arsenal performs better right now. This is truly not enough.
   
  
• The mods to Severing Slash do nothing for any spec of the Assassin. it sits in the same tier as Shroud, and as such is never taken because shroud is so strong. Any buffs or changes to Severing Slashare are thus meaningless.
  

 

The Ugly

• 
   
  
• Why would you ever nerf Lightning like this? The nerfs to damage are massive. MASSIVE. It can't be understated. The only thing needed to keep people from hard casting Halted Offensive its cooldown increased by 2 or 3 seconds, so there is no window to hard cast it before Thundering comes off cd. This would also decrease Lightnings single target DPS output to similar realm as IO, Virulence or Madness. Whatever you are trying to do with lightning, this is not the way.
   
  
• Advanced Prototype is decently-ish strong in PvE, its a good class to provide the group with an Armor Debuff, and has its uses baked in, as its a PT spec. AP is also madly (and arguably too) strong in PvP with some of the strongest burst ingame, and the unique ability to global other players. So a good change to soften its PvP strength a bit would be to shave off some damage from its burst abilities and put the on the fillers and Sustain Damage parts of the class, to keep it where it is in PvE, right?
  Well, what you are trying to do will completely go the other way, massively decreasing its sustain (nerfs to magnetic blast, retractable blade DoT, and for some reason the Energy Burst burn, that was never an issue to begin with and barely used in either PvE or PvP). Not only that, but you also decided to give the AP a new tactical that, for whatever reason, increases AP's burst potential. I don't know what you are expecting this to do, but it will make Ap only worse, less good in PvE, even more powerful in PvP. Please, please reconsider these changes.
  

 

What's missing

• Now that the operative has its AoE DR added, the merc also needs something, it is simply too weak in that regard. Something similar to the operatives solution added to Chaff Flare for example would do the trick.
  
• Please, take a good look at the scenarios in Ops that produce high incoming AoE damage. Some of these are virtually imposible to survive without the operatives incredible group healing potential. Something like the Omnicannon dealing 140% of a players lifepool in damage is simply not survivable once the operative is nerfed. The Hateful Entity will also be much more difficult than it already is.
  

 

To finish this post, I'd like to say that i very much like the general road taken in terms of balance decisions. However, the road ahead to where i expect your target to be is still long, and some proposed steps are sadly in the wrong direction. Please, carefully read the feedback provided to by us players you and act on it. Most players that do provide good feedback care about this game very much and only want the best for it.

Thank you.

[Monterone]

Half-assed Slow Mercy return for Madness Sorc... The biggest draw of that tactical was Demolish being spread to targets affected by Death Marks. I want my AoE tactical back... the REAL one!

 

This right here.

 

There are already enough slows in the game and the extra 15% damage on Storm isn't going to make this new tactical very appealing.

[Monterone]

2. No one took severing slash when you gave it to us for free. You think we are going to take this trash ability over shroud/instant whirlwind because it gives us a little DR? Unless the DR is 25% per target and lasts at least 6 seconds, severing slash is worthless and will not be taken. It was a trash ability on day 1. It is a trash ability today. Stop trying to make it work, it's not going to work and you only look like you are out of touch trying.

 

Severing Slash never really belonged on Deception... ever. It was, and still is, just a poorly designed ability slapped onto the wrong spec.

 

I always thought Deception should have something like a temporary clone. Like a random direction 30m Phase Walk, but it leaves behind a clone for 3s that can take damage. I might trade something for that. And it fits with deception.

[AnRR]

Its hard to evaluate these changes without understanding why. Doing my best to understand. I do not think nerfing dps is the move. You have really strong specs, meh specs, and then trash tier that cant even parse high enough on a dummy to raid outside of SM specs. I think nerfing is fine if you have a baseline that you want all classes to be at, and some are overperforming, like fury/concentration was. The DPS that are not doing well really need help, I understand that balance can be really difficult at times, but before nerfing most specs they should be either on even playing field or nerfed because they are by far ahead of the rest. But these nerfs seem a little harsh, 7.x has been a slew of losing survivability, and now damage nerfs to classes that are in the middle of the parsing tiering and even hurting some of the specs that are low on the list.

[DustyDemonNinja]

Hi everyone!

 

We really appreciate all your feedback and have been reading all of it. I just wanted to make a post to clarify somethings accidentally missed in the OP. One is that we missed some Sorcerer / Sage changes, which will be added to the OP in the changes section.

 

The Tempest of Rho change is a fundamental -7% nerf to damage with the other two adjustments not making up for it. Meaning that an already underperforming class is going to be even worse now.

 

Additionally, why was the tool tip never updated if it was at 75%!? The current tool tip reads:

Lightning Strike and Overloaded Strike has a 100% chance and Force Lightning has a 50% chance to cause Creeping Terror to tick an additional time whenever they deal damage.

 

Overall, I don't understand why there are so many nerfs coming through since R4 Story Mode is still exceedingly hard for people to do even in decent gear, and Veteran mode is only being done successfully with nonstandard group comps.

 

These changes seem so out of context overall and perhaps the developers could help us understand why these changes are being made and what they are intended to fix - is this in response to PvP, PvE - why are these changes being made!?

 

If this is to address PvP - will R4 adjustments be made - also the top end DPS classes, then need further adjustment down to ACTUALLY create Balance - right now this is tipping the PvE things way out of balance and soon groups will flat out start refusing to allow Balance sages from even running as their performance is so abysmal presently.

 

 

:rak_02::rak_02::rak_02:

Edited September 1, 2022 by DustyDemonNinja

[sithBracer]

Severing Slash never really belonged on Deception... ever. It was, and still is, just a poorly designed ability slapped onto the wrong spec.

 

I always thought Deception should have something like a temporary clone. Like a random direction 30m Phase Walk, but it leaves behind a clone for 3s that can take damage. I might trade something for that. And it fits with deception.

 

Not sure how people haven't figured this out yet, but every new ability they gave assassins is trash ,while they took away useful abilities.

 

Phantom stride is force leaps/holotraverses younger dumber slower brother who trips over himself half of the time. And to make it worse they tied burst to it, removing the original intention of giving sins a gap closer after adding ridiculous amounts of mobility to ranged classes (in case people forgot, they nerfed force speed to 25s CD then). And then just for fun, they nerfed it and put a GCD on it. But it's ok, because it was to "fix a bug" ... sure it was.

 

Reaping strike is literally just blood letting (seriously, read the passive). Sins already have 4 4m melee white damage abilities (maul, assasinate, voltaic, lacerate, auto attack), they did not need another.

 

Severing slash is a joke, it always was a joke it always will be a joke.

 

Even the original phase walk was a 2.5s cast in a game with very low TTK. Only after they lowered it to .5s did they remove it from sins and give it to sorcs.

 

And all sins had to lose was phase walk at its best, crushing darkness-which always combo'd with low slash, force lightning which situationally could be used as a 30m ability to finish off enemies. But at least they got to keep a 10m force slow. We know how much everyone uses the 10m force slow.

 

now here is what those abilities should have been if BW didn't hate assassins so much:

1. phantom stride: you press it once and you use your mouse to point to where you wanted to port to. press it again and you phantom stride over (similar to passing a huttball). double tap and you port to whatever you are targetting ... similar to a huttball toss.

2. reaping strike. first off, 10m, sins don't need another 4m melee ability. Next, sin stealths out (similar to cloak), ports to enemy and reaping strikes them. This will help sins in mid fights by taking target off them. It reinforces them as a stealth class. it reinforces them as a "hunter" style class. It gives them a mini gap closer.

3. just make double stealthout default for deception and forget severing slash ever came into your head.

Edited September 1, 2022 by sithBracer

[ZUHFB]

I love to see so many angry sorcs, it does make me happy. Anyway some people said that this is catered towards PvP but it really isn't. This small % thing you read again and again isn't actually the same as in WoW for example. 1% here = 100 people - keep that in mind.

[Uzamakiuchi]

Lighting sorc need is ridiculous cause top DPS parses far exceeds lighthing sorc you guys even play this ge att all ????

[cflems]

I love to see so many angry sorcs, it does make me happy. Anyway some people said that this is catered towards PvP but it really isn't. This small % thing you read again and again isn't actually the same as in WoW for example. 1% here = 100 people - keep that in mind.

 

I get being annoyed at sorcs but lightning isn't the one to be pissed at, that would be madness. This is just taking the worse performing spec and running it into the ground. A nerf to death brand is in order but of course that's not what we get. Also, so everyone is clear, these nerfs make no sense from a PvP or PvE perspective. It's not players from other forms of content causing undeserved nerfs, these are just poorly thought through changes.

 

And as I said before if the heal thing really is replacing the instant lightning bolts on convection... that is literally spec-breaking and uninstall-worthy in terms of its effect in PvP, and would do nothing to DPS numbers in PvE. I will put up with a whole lot in this game, but making it impossible to reasonably build DR stacks in PvP, on top of making it near impossible to recover your health, would be a level of cruelty to my main spec that I cannot tolerate. It would literally make you a sniper without the benefit of cover and entrench. The DPS numbers can be whatever they need to, but having to hardcast every damage ability other than the one with the longest cooldown, in a meta where it's difficult to even get one cast off through spammable leaps, pulls, knocks, los, and interrupts, would make an already pretty underperforming spec straight miserable to try and play, in addition to placing it squarely in F tier. I pray that this is just accidental ambiguous formatting, and the lightning bolts are left alone.

Edited September 1, 2022 by cflems

[MartiuSartorius]

I am playing both pve and pvp. I am not top end elite player, but i am playing with few breaks almost from begining. I have cleared most of the nim operations, I have multiple classes with valor 100 and I have multiple classes with silver rating in ranked. I am playing little bit of everything and I played almost every spec in the game. So I am average player who is playing for a long time.

My favourite class for PVE was juggernaut tank. When I joined nim progression groups, I was always asked to switch to assassin tank, which was always the best pve tank. I was hoping for many years for balancing tanks, until I swapped to playing dps. I love to play powertech. Pyro is really fun to play and it is top 3 dps class for raids (maybe top4 - mara, jugg, assassin). Reason to stack powertechs is their utilities - rebounder and taunt. Marauders and juggs are being the best pve dps classes. Juggs have better single target dps, crazy AoE dmg and also a taunt (both jugg specs have superior dps to pt). Marauders have even more utilities than powertechs and much better dps (all 3 mara specs have superior dps to pt). Only fights where powertech are able to outdps marauders or juggs are fights where PTs can fluff their dmg. When parsing on 6m dummy, pt pyro is the 15th best dps spec (only specs who are parsing lower are arsenal, sharpshooter and AP PT). And you are nerfing dps from both pyro and AP? AP doesnt need nerf, it needs to increase single target sustain dps a little - maybe by creating usefull tactical which would make energy burst cost 0 heat at 4 stacks. Pyro is fine where it is, it doesnt need any changes at all. Those proposed nerfs looks like they were made by crying marauders who got beat on 3 final bosses in operations. If you want to stop stacking powertechs, you can remove one of their utility - f.e. make rebounder only for tanks. But nerfing dps is wrong especially when you didnt nerf top 1 and top 2 classes.

I dont play sorc dps lately so I wont say much about it, but there is absolutely no need for nerfing their dps also. And do not add any more slows to pvp. You removed a lot of CC from game when 7.0 started and now you are implementing it back? It doesnt make any sence.

Only what I can agree with you is nerfing OP and their AoE heals. It is little bit too much.

Other than that, please stop nerfing dps and rather bring up those specs who are behind. Those nerfs are weird considering how R4 ops is balanced and with how you lower HP of other operational bosses. With all those nerfs you are making it difficult to love this game for us.

[SpikeSaber]

Dear BioWare,

 

I really hope you will listen to our feedbacks and revert/remake some changes. I've been playing lightning sorc for a while, and it is currently in a good spot and doesnt require nerf at all. If you really want to remove Halted offensive/Power of the Storm hardcast, then make it 4 second cast, but instead make it autocrit like thundering blast, this would even things out.

 

Nerf to stormwatch is completely unnecessary its not that insane leave it alone or introduce a new tactical that is a better option.

 

No point in nerfing forked thundering blast its like 1-2% of total dps from sorc.

 

The most important thing is, if you make these nerfs, then later on introduce us with Master mode operation of R4, even with new augments lightning will not compete compared to any other good specs. Currently lightning is pretty strong in Veteran R4, but that is only if person is fully geared, using 5% alacrity buff (Zeal guild perk) and Mastery 6-8% guild buff aswell. But when Master Mode comes out, all of the guild buffs will be useless, and that is atleast -3-4k dps to lightning spec on top of nerfs that you want to introduce that is atleast 12% dps nerf.

 

If you look at https://parsely.io/parser/stats then you can see on 6,5mil dummy the AVERAGE DPS of sorc is 27770 and highest is 33k, you should never look at highest parse , even highest parse isnt that insane. So lets say average sorc player does 28k dps and you nerf spec by about 12% that is gonna be like 25k instead.

 

So if R4 MM requires 5-6 dps to kill first boss in Veteran Mode, and Master Mode supposted to be like atleast 2 times harder , lightning dps will not be enough and people will have to bring only meta tier specs.

 

So in conclusion for content like Gods MM and upcoming R4 MM , lightning won't be a viable spec to play at all.

 

If you want to Balance things in PVE that try to tune raid encounters differently and not nerf specs to the ground.

If your desire to balance things in PVP, then try to make a separate stats/talent for PVP.

 

If the nerfs would be like 2-3% overall, that would be okay, but above 10% makes no sense in current Pve situations.

 

Also please understand, there are only of handful people re-clearing R4 HM without having troubles and way way more people that still struggle to past first boss.

 

Just leave Lightning as it is now, it is in good spot right now as a stationary turret dps without much mobility, but if you really want to remove hardcast Halted then make it much longer cast and autocrit when it procs instead, that is currently best solution for removing hardcast rotation, in my opinion hardcast is not an issue, but for a lot of people it is.

 

Thank you for your time and please consider our feedback, for example im on these forums since 2009, so im a long term swtor player and when it comes to lightning sorc I know how to play the class, but if you make these changes you will remove part of the fun of playing the spec and thats one less reason to continue my sub.

 

Best Regards.

[ARFett]

Totally idiotic changes again giving the shaft to non-force users.

 

Sorcs are already outperforming on heals all other classes.

 

Now they get ANOTHER buff while the the other heals are AGAIN nerfed?!

 

All DPS NON-force user are again NERFED.

 

And the Sorcs with their already gamebreaking endless stun, teleport, bubbles are again...BUFFED.

 

Get you bloody balance right!

 

This makes things even worse.

 

Already you see tons of sorc only premades who are sweeping the Warzones with overlapping DoT damage and the endless lightning dps which is just insane and outperforms EVERY other dps in pure dps per minute.

 

For Gods sake:

 

Stop buffing the force users to heaven.

 

As a person who likes to play NON-force users all my classes got shafted constantly nerfed.

 

To see 70-80% FORCE-users only in WZ does speak a clear language:

 

Force users are outperforming the non-force user classes.

 

And to again see only buffs on force users - especially the Sorcs who are already a pain in the *** and totally overpowered - leaves me in a sour mood.

 

Balance is bad already.

 

This...

 

Bah.

 

Probably time to finally unsub.

 

Things are going south very fast.

[dylanfailbh]

Chris, I'm excited to see the changes with Hatred, it really feels justified with the TTT tactical, and I love to see Hungering force getting a slight buff, however I would implore you to add to it a Damage reduction as in PVP Hatred is completely at a disadvantage compared to Deception when it comes to absorbing damage. It is a complete glass cannon that could do with a Critical Defense as Madness has, and tack it onto Hungering Force. I also implore you to reconsider Severing Slash, nobody and I mean nobody uses this utility in pvp in the slightest, I've never seen someone use it as anything other than a new player trying everything out. Please add a greater increase to lifesteal, it is a laughing matter when Deception can self heal better than Hatred, please add a greater lifesteal to Hatred.

 

Points made:

Buff Hungering Force to include a version of Critical Defense to share some defensives a Madness Sorc has to make it more viable in PVP

Increase Lifesteal for hatred by at least 50% everytime eradicate is up instead of severing slash. As it would be pointless to pick that when shroud is in the same bracket

[Deaconik]

so we are going to end up with every retard playing OP marauder/sentinal or PT's an nobody wanting to play ranged as they wont be as competitive on starparse , you really do make some retarded decisions when it comes to nerfing classes

 

The new operation has 4 bosses, 2 of them require heavy range groups. We talk 1T 1DWT 1 Melee, rest ranged or in case of lord gardener - 2t 1 melee rest ranged (can be done with 2 melees, but meh).

 

Just sayin.

[WendaWenda]

Can u add Sunder debuff to ''Driving Gore'', the lvl 23 choice for Carnage?

It seems to be an oversight that Driving gore doesn't apply Sunder debuff, which makes the choice unusable in all game modes.

[Sarova]

 

Sorcerer / Sage

 

Lightning / Telekinesis

• Reverberating Force - Critical hit damage bonus has been reduced to 12% down from 15%.
  
• Thundering Blast - Second arc of damage deals 20% of Turbulence's damage down from 25%.
  
• Storm watch damage decreased by 4%
  
• Halted Offensive cast time increased from 2.5 seconds to 3.0 seconds. Alacrity still affects cast time.
  
• Decrease Halted Offensive damage by 15%.
  
• Convection - Thundering Blast grants Reserved Darkness, making Dark Heal an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.
  

Why do you hate me? /cry Nerfing lightning is, to be blunt, ridiculous. I'm already favouring my second class spec (assassin) to do unranked; these changes will most likely make that a permanent change. By the time we've cast our strongest damage we're dead (usually from an operative, scoundrel or marauder with their awesome burst dmg).

 

And why on earth are healers being buffed 0.0? Have you been in PvP lately? They are unkillable even with crappy gear (I switched one of my operatives to heal spec just to see what would happen - it was hilariously overpowered). Are the buffs to healing an ops thing?

Edited September 1, 2022 by Sarova

[ceazare]

Madness / Balance

• New Tactical: Killing Field (AOE)
  
• Death Field slows targets it affects by 50%. Force Storm deals 15% more damage to slowed targets.
  

 

Hey Chris

 

So the tactical in this form doesn't really bring enough to the table to be worth using in most scenarios. The aoe slow effect would mostly be useful in pvp where I thought we were moving away from abundant rotational slows. As for the other part of the tactical; Force Storm for Madness is pretty weak. In most cases it's barely worth using it over single target rotation. With 15% damage bonus on slowed targets it'd still be terrible and it wouldn't make Storm better than Overloaded Strike, even on 6+ targets (I'm trying to say that Force Storm is too weak and not that Overloaded Strike is too strong). I could even argue that the tactial would be better used by Lightning since it has slow on Chain Lightning and a crit passive for Force Storm.

 

Anyway, I'd be fine with removing either or even both of those effects and just bring back Demolish spread from the old Slow Mercy tactical ("Death Field spreads Force Slow's effect. Demolish hits all nearby targets affected by your Deathmark and Force Storm does 15% more damage to targets affected by your Deathmark."). That way the tactical might actually be worth considering.

 

• Disintegration - Death Field and Death Brand grant Vitiate's Malice, giving Force Lightning 20% Lifesteal for 12 seconds.
  

 

We could use some clarification here. Is this meant to add or to change the current Disintegration passive ("Increases the critical chance of Force Lightning and Lightning Strike by 15%")? Same question for Lightning's Convection change.

 

In any case, the spec doesn't really need more self-healing. Its weakness is damage output.

 

• Force Horrors - Increase periodic damage from 15% to 20%.
  
• Lightning Barrage - Force Lightning reduced damage changed to -20% from -25%.
  
• Tempest of Rho - Correctly applies 50% chance for Force Lightning to trigger periodic effects down from 75%
  

 

I understand that Rho is bugged, but even so the spec is barely competitive. Even with the slight buffs this is still a cumulative nerf of around 5% (more, if Disintegration is a change). To offset the damage loss from Rho, Force Horrors would have to be increased to 30% and Lightning Barrage to -15%. I can't understand nerfing a spec that's already one of the worst. I'm not sure if it's reached even average levels since 3.0, based on rankings on dummy and in ops...

 

On a more general note, looking at rankings, the top damage dealers on >90% of raid bosses have been melee classes for a long time. I understand the reasoning for setting target ranged dps a bit lower than melee (though I'd believe that instead, pushback and interrupting casts when forced to move should balance out melee's uptime issues), but isn't this a bit much?

Edited September 1, 2022 by ceazare

[Robonthecob]

Alright I made a post about hatred before the lightning/tele nerfs were added. What, is the reasoning for this? Five nerfs for one spec, a spec which is by all accounts middle, or lower middle of the pack? Explain what philosophy is motivating these changes? Is lightning literally not allowed to be viable? The current gameplay loop with hardcasted HOs isn't the best imo, when I play lightning I like instant casts, or very quick casts, but that doesn't mean nerf the spec to irrelevancy, which is what these nerfs will accomplish. If arsenal players are in the gutter, and not allowed to play their favorite spec because it is literally unviable, then the answer should be to buff them, rather than nuke another middling rdps for the sin of being somewhat viable. I shouldn't get mad about a video game, really, but this change is rather rage inducing given Lightning's meager current performance. You are saying don't play this spec in higher end content, and as lightning is my preferred spec, should these changes go through, I will listen to what you are saying and play something else, and that doesn't necessarily mean a different class. Edited September 1, 2022 by Robonthecob

[ChrisDurel]

Hi all!

 

Just wanted to let you all know I've been reading all this feedback and I really appreciate all the well thought out posts! I wanted to give a couple quick notes to ease some concerns.

 

We are going to look into making some changes or redesigning the Sorcerer's AOE Tactical, as we understand some people have some concerns with the usefulness of slow and also introducing more slows into into the game.

 

I also wanted to take a moment to address some Assassin tank concerns as well. The intention of removing the DR from Severing Slash was simply to not force that choice on all tanks. But seeing as some players are feeling that is too much right now, we have decided to roll back that change for 7.1.1. In a future tank balance pass (more on that later), we may circle back to this and address is another way. If we do end up changing the functionality of Severing Slash, it's important for us to give that mitigation back somewhere else. So, for now, we're going to leave it as it currently stands with the understanding that it probably will be the most popular choice for Assassin Tanks. We will do a pass on that whole choice row in a future balance pass.

 

As for the DPS nerfs, we realize these come off as very major, but I can assure you we are constantly re-assessing these classes and all of this is subject to change. While I can't give any specific details, know that we continue to tune these classes. A good suggestion I saw on the forums was increasing Concealment's Tactical Critical from further from 6s to 8s. Quality of life changes like this that make the class easier to play well are improvements we can augment the changes we are making to their DPS output.

 

Finally, we continue to look at Operation difficulty. The team continues to tweak and adjust R4 and other Operations to ensure a fair balance. We realize any class changes affect that and we are trying to account for them as best we can.

 

As we iterate on these changes I will update this thread.

 

Thanks again,

-Chris

[JakRoanin]

Hi all!

 

Just wanted to let you all know I've been reading all this feedback and I really appreciate all the well thought out posts! I wanted to give a couple quick notes to ease some concerns.

 

We are going to look into making some changes or redesigning the Sorcerer's AOE Tactical, as we understand some people have some concerns with the usefulness of slow and also introducing more slows into into the game.

 

I also wanted to take a moment to address some Assassin tank concerns as well. The intention of removing the DR from Severing Slash was simply to not force that choice on all tanks. But seeing as some players are feeling that is too much right now, we have decided to roll back that change for 7.1.1. In a future tank balance pass (more on that later), we may circle back to this and address is another way. If we do end up changing the functionality of Severing Slash, it's important for us to give that mitigation back somewhere else. So, for now, we're going to leave it as it currently stands with the understanding that it probably will be the most popular choice for Assassin Tanks. We will do a pass on that whole choice row in a future balance pass.

 

As for the DPS nerfs, we realize these come off as very major, but I can assure you we are constantly re-assessing these classes and all of this is subject to change. While I can't give any specific details, know that we continue to tune these classes. A good suggestion I saw on the forums was increasing Concealment's Tactical Critical from further from 6s to 8s. Quality of life changes like this that make the class easier to play well are improvements we can augment the changes we are making to their DPS output.

 

Finally, we continue to look at Operation difficulty. The team continues to tweak and adjust R4 and other Operations to ensure a fair balance. We realize any class changes affect that and we are trying to account for them as best we can.

 

As we iterate on these changes I will update this thread.

 

Thanks again,

-Chris

 

It's so great to see you keeping up with the breakneck pace of this thread Mr. Durel, it can't be easy. I know this will sound like the most braindead question a person can possibly ask, but can we get any information about Open World synch adjustments. Stats like our Presence, Alacrity, etc? Can we get some hope that our companions will actually heal, tank, and DPS?

[Zamilork]

Changed the Two Time Trouble tactical so that it can no longer tick from Saber Strike damage.

 

This will likely ruin the current hatred rotations: Most of hatred dps comes from being able to keep Maliciousness at 2 stacks, which is a 20% dmg buff, while also keeping the eradicate dot up near 100% of the time as well.

 

With this chnage you wont have enough TTT procs from thrash to reliably get recklessness off CD, losing the stacks and making the rotation break.

 

This will cost hatred anywhere from 2k to 7k single target dps.

 

May I ask Bioware, what is your reasoning for this change? hatred is NOT over-represented in NM pve fights, even ones with lots of adds Veng Jugg slam spam can do that way better. Looking at NM apex (final) bosses on parsely's stats shows hatred in the top five of only 3 bosses, Izax ( from a whopping ONE parse/person), EC Kephess, 2nd only to rage jugg, 4th on TFB.

 

As someone else mentioned before, pure dps alone isnt what makes a spec good in NM. team utility does. hatred as little util outside of off taunt and AOE dr, its cleave dmg is weak compared to Jugg/guardian.

 

if you really want to nerf hatred, leave TTT alone and reduce it's sub 30% damage by like 15-20%, that will keep it in line with other dps currently, while not breaking the rotations/ spec entirely.

 

IF/when this change goes live, this spec will vanish from hard HMs and NM. If the goal is to create more diversity in DPS classes, Killing 5 classes is NOT the way to go.

[WoRei]

Hi all!

 

Just wanted to let you all know I've been reading all this feedback and I really appreciate all the well thought out posts! I wanted to give a couple quick notes to ease some concerns.

 

We are going to look into making some changes or redesigning the Sorcerer's AOE Tactical, as we understand some people have some concerns with the usefulness of slow and also introducing more slows into into the game.

 

I also wanted to take a moment to address some Assassin tank concerns as well. The intention of removing the DR from Severing Slash was simply to not force that choice on all tanks. But seeing as some players are feeling that is too much right now, we have decided to roll back that change for 7.1.1. In a future tank balance pass (more on that later), we may circle back to this and address is another way. If we do end up changing the functionality of Severing Slash, it's important for us to give that mitigation back somewhere else. So, for now, we're going to leave it as it currently stands with the understanding that it probably will be the most popular choice for Assassin Tanks. We will do a pass on that whole choice row in a future balance pass.

 

As for the DPS nerfs, we realize these come off as very major, but I can assure you we are constantly re-assessing these classes and all of this is subject to change. While I can't give any specific details, know that we continue to tune these classes. A good suggestion I saw on the forums was increasing Concealment's Tactical Critical from further from 6s to 8s. Quality of life changes like this that make the class easier to play well are improvements we can augment the changes we are making to their DPS output.

 

Finally, we continue to look at Operation difficulty. The team continues to tweak and adjust R4 and other Operations to ensure a fair balance. We realize any class changes affect that and we are trying to account for them as best we can.

 

As we iterate on these changes I will update this thread.

 

Thanks again,

-Chris

 

Regarding the huge lightning sorc nerf:

Could you please explain why you think this class needs a nerf at all? In my opinion this makes absolutely no sense - To be honest, it seems that you don't know your own game.

At the moment, halted offensive must be hardcasted on cooldown to make average damage compared to other (mostly melee) specs, which already removed alot of mobility of the class compared to 6.x

No lightning sorc likes long casts but it was the only rotation to make enough dmg to be worth taking into a raid.

Now you nerf the spec from medium tier into the low performing tier - I think lightning will face the same fate as merc with those nerfs.

If you want us all to play only melee dot classes then just remove all other specs from game.

[Dewlmenow]

Hi all!

 

Just wanted to let you all know I've been reading all this feedback and I really appreciate all the well thought out posts! I wanted to give a couple quick notes to ease some concerns.

 

We are going to look into making some changes or redesigning the Sorcerer's AOE Tactical, as we understand some people have some concerns with the usefulness of slow and also introducing more slows into into the game.

 

I also wanted to take a moment to address some Assassin tank concerns as well. The intention of removing the DR from Severing Slash was simply to not force that choice on all tanks. But seeing as some players are feeling that is too much right now, we have decided to roll back that change for 7.1.1. In a future tank balance pass (more on that later), we may circle back to this and address is another way. If we do end up changing the functionality of Severing Slash, it's important for us to give that mitigation back somewhere else. So, for now, we're going to leave it as it currently stands with the understanding that it probably will be the most popular choice for Assassin Tanks. We will do a pass on that whole choice row in a future balance pass.

 

 

Hi Chris,

 

Thank you for listening to feedback here, but this is definitely minor compared to the dps concerns.

 

As for the DPS nerfs, we realize these come off as very major, but I can assure you we are constantly re-assessing these classes and all of this is subject to change. While I can't give any specific details, know that we continue to tune these classes. A good suggestion I saw on the forums was increasing Concealment's Tactical Critical from further from 6s to 8s. Quality of life changes like this that make the class easier to play well are improvements we can augment the changes we are making to their DPS output.

 

The big issue that most people are having is not the nerfs themselves, but rather which specs you are choosing to nerf.

 

The overtuned specs in PVE are:

 

Operative healer - getting deservedly nerfed, really good changes made here and with the other healers

 

Pyro DPS - also getting deservedly nerfed, also good changes here

 

Anni DPS healing - not touched

 

Vengeance DPS AOE - also not touched

 

Fury DPS - also not touched

 

Hatred execute - getting nerfed too much

 

 

 

 

The other changes you are making to concealment, madness, lightning, and AP just don't make any sense from a player's POV, and you are nerfing them while leaving the overperforming specs untouched. It would make players less frustrated if you explained why you are nerfing underperforming specs while leaving over half of the overperforming specs untouched.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Dewlmenow