Planned Balance Changes for 7.1.1

[Elofyn]

Thanks Chris and the team for the thread and back and forth discussion.

 

I'm looking at this topic from high end pve point of view. I think that whatever tuning changes you make (meaning adjusting the numbers without changes to rotations) are irrelevant for Story mode and legacy Veteran mode operations. That content has been tuned so that it can be cleared with any combination of specs - in other words, the requirement to clear that content is player ability only.

 

Its necessary to bring this up, since tuning and class balance does not exist in vacuum. It should always be considered with the content in mind. Many many people in this thread are baffled by these proposed changes, because they seem to be a complete mismatch to the high end content that exists in the game (R4 VM, Gods MM and to lesser extent other legacy Master modes). Furthermore, the operations were just nerfed across the board. It is confusing that you are nerfing the content and then nerfing dps specs (seemingly semi-arbitrarily). If the content became too easy, just revert the content nerfs?

 

Furthermore, several people (including myself) are wondering, how do you measure performance, especially for the dps specs? I would really like to know. I can think of few different ways: 1) spec representation 2) dummy parse leaderboards (not the top but average of top 50 or 100 parses for each spec) 3) operation boss leaderboards.

 

I understood that the purpose here is to bring the specs closer each other in performance. This is why it is critical to understand what you mean by performance. Option 1) spec representation is affected by dps numbers sure, but also by utility that the spec provides.

 

2) Dummy parse leaderboards (not the top but average of top 50 or 100 parses) is a poor measurement system because it does not represent real pve or pvp situation correctly. If this is your measurement method for performance, please use something else.

 

3) Operation boss leaderboards are skewed because they magnify the strengths and weaknesses of each spec. A good example is how Vengeance Juggs dominate if there are adds on the encounter. Specs having niches where they are dominating is not a bad thing in my opinion but it just makes operation leaderboards (as in which specs are in the top 100 parses) a poor tool to measure overall performance.

 

Swtorlogs.com is a parse log analysis tool that calculates statistics based on uploaded parses (as an example: https://www.swtorlogs.com/zone/statistics/14#). Higher the score, the better is the performance of the spec. Currently the performance is unfortunately not representative because there are very few people who upload parses and those players play their specs extremely well, but I hope that changes in the future if people upload more logs. I bring this up, because I assume (hope) that Bioware uses similar analysis tools to see how their specs are performing on each specific encounter/operation.

 

But I'm tangenting off the topic. I would hope that the goal of Bioware is to bring the spec representation closer to each other (true balance is impossible but you can strive towards that), because that means that the real performance of those specs is closer to each other. But how to do this? I'll throw my 2 cents in.

 

If the balancing problem's core really is the conflict between pve and pvp, its a good idea to apply separate tuning to those environments. I've come to understand that Arsenal merc would be too good in pvp if it was buffed so that it could be representable in high end pve. I assume its a lot of work, but if you adjust the damage of each ability based on the environment, this problem is avoided entirely. WoW had this problem a long time and they fixed it with PVP talents and separate tuning.

 

If we want to go to detailed level:

 

Regarding current nerfs:

- Healer changes are ok, although Bodyguard buff is probably too much. Merc was already good enough.

- Operative AOE damage reduction is good change

- Concealment damage nerfs are not necessary and the Defensive Stance mod change irrelevant because Roll Knife is too good to give up. If you must nerf Concealment dps output, then critical damage bonus from Stim boost is enough.

- Pyro changes are ok, I don't know enough about AP to comment. I would mention here that dps PT defensive kit is very op, demonstrated by being able to tank 3 consecutive cleaves from Overload/Inferno droids with ease (Yield for 1st, Energy Shield to cover 2nd and 3rd and Sonic Missile AOE damage reduction to cover 3rd. If you wanted to change the 6 dps 2 healers comp that has formed (for good reason!) around IP-CPT VM, one reason is that DwTs can do the little tanking that is needed in the fight.

- Lightning changes seem a bit excessive as many here have said. Probably too much, especially considering that Lightning benefits from Guild Perks more than average dps specs and thus Lightning dps output is higher in R4 than in MM operations. If you must nerf, aim to 5% rather than 10% decrease in dps output.

- Good to see that you are reverting the Darkness change.

 

How to buff underperformers:

As stated already, it would be good to understand what kind of performance were buffing here. I would implement incremental changes and observe how the community reacts. As an example, buff Arsenal dps output by 3% by increasing the numbers on some abilities. After 2 weeks, if the representation has increased, good! If it has not, make another 3% buff. Continue iterating until you have found a sweet spot that you want to achieve. The content updating pace of this game is so slow that you can iterate in peace (as long as you communicate your intention well!). And if the spec becomes too good for pvp, please refer to what I wrote above.

 

In Concealment's case (because its the spec I know the well), I would implement only the AOE damage reduction change at this point, cince the representation is already so low. If suddenly every PVE encounter was dominated by Concealment operatives because if this (doubtful tho), then hit the spec with these nerfs. I guess I'm proposing staggered changes here again, since now you are proposing to increase the spec survival ability but decreasing its dps. When the spec has nonexistent utility, dps is the only selling point. Nerfing too much will result in the the situation not changing at all: the spec not being represented.

Edited September 2, 2022 by Elofyn
Fixing typos

[theskullwalker]

 

Operative / Scoundrel

Medicine / Sawbones

• Reduced the Kolto Burst mod’s healing on secondary targets by 50%.
  

 

 

One thought on this, as someone who does oper healing in NIM content, I feel like the direction of this is good, but the execution isn't great. In aoe-dtps heavy situations it would likely require you to be more careful with keeping probes up on more targets to sustain the group health, but it still doesn't remove the spammable nature of the ability, with kolto waves still being dead aside of situations where you cannot reach your group or cannot stack to reach everyone, whereas kolto waves should be the dominant to-go aoe ability when healing entire group. Additionally kolto injection spam encourages heavy positional stacking in group at all times, whereas an operative feels more natural keeping dot heals up and generally being more mobile, with the base class being the only 'melee' healer in game.

 

I was thinking modifying the injection to grant a buff that interacts with kolto waves would help resolve this. Kolto injection could give the target and those around a buff that lasts Xsec and expires when target receives healing from kolto waves. The buff could either increase the healing received from the kolto waves for the duration of the channel, or increase the healing of the first tick of kolto waves. To clarify I'm suggesting one or the other, not both.

 

In my opinion this would help go back to the more dot/buff playstyle of the operative, make them more mobile in terms of positioning rather than always be reliant on positioning of the group, and take away the spammy injection playstyle completely (due to cooldown of waves), while returning kolto waves as the dominant aoe-heal ability used for healing up a large amount of the group. Oh, and also this maintains the change being an injection upgrade, to keep it in the same position on the skill tree.

 

Thanks for reading.

Edited September 2, 2022 by theskullwalker

[LordCamTheGreat]

I was thinking modifying the injection to grant a buff that interacts with kolto waves would help resolve this. Kolto injection could give the target and those around a buff that lasts Xsec and expires when target receives healing from kolto waves. The buff could either increase the healing received from the kolto waves for the duration of the channel, or increase the healing of the first tick of kolto waves. To clarify I'm suggesting one or the other, not both.

 

I was actually just thinking that having kolto burst interact with kolto waves would be an interesting way of balancing out their AOE while also removing some of the spamminess of it.

 

Sorcerers currently have a morph for chain lightning where the first tick of force storm procs a burst of damage.

Kolto burst could similarly provide a buff on nearby allies that gets procced by the first tick of kolto waves for an extra bit of healing (or a flat buff to the whole channel). This effect could stack a couple of times and/or be on a rate limit to encourage using other abilities while you wait for kolto waves to come back up. Essentially, power would be shifted from kolto burst spam into buffing and using kolto waves more often as the strongest AoE option.

 

My main concern is that operative AoE healing is seen as one of the only ways to clear hard group content, which means any nerf or adjustment to their healing will need to be met by buffs to Mercenary and Sorcerer and/or nerfs to some harder content's damage.

I'd rather see Merc and Sorc receive larger buffs than see Operatives get gutted and I don't think they've received appropriate buffs just yet.

 

I'll have to make another post going over my thoughts on all the other things / what I think would be good for the combat styles.

[LordCamTheGreat]

Operative / Scoundrel

General:

• Evasion/Dodge changes are nice, but it has the same issue as sniper/gunslinger where practically all their defensives and threat reductions are on the same ability and still have worse defensives than every other melee combat style
  

 

Medicine / Sawbones:

 

• Kolto burst nerf was needed but as I said in my previous post, I think it should be tied into kolto waves to make it more interesting to play
  
• Nano Mark change might not be needed if the kolto burst changes go through, I'd rather see the other healers get buffed than the top healer be nerfed due to how difficult harder group content is right now.
  
• Reactive Substances healing for less than a tick of kolto waves makes it seem rather weak even if it can be stacked twice. Personally I'd really like a morph that lets you use kolto injection while moving (you give up kolto burst and don't gain healing so it wouldn't be OP imo), or maybe something that procs and refreshes kolto probe.
  

 

 

Concealment / Scrapper:

I'm just going to say that I don't think this combat style needed nerfing at all. It's fine as it is while also having some poor defensives outside of god roll.

• Acid Lash nerf should be reverted
  
• Crippling slice lifesteal seems like it will be mostly irrelevant if it's not 100% lifesteal
  
• Tactical Critical buff is nice
  

 

 

Sniper / Gunslinger

Marksmanship / Sharpshooter:

• I will still likely never use Target Acquired / Illegal mods, it just doesn't do enough compared for an ability on such a long cooldown. Personally I think it should be combined with Laze Target / Smuggler's Luck and replaced with a new ABC passive
  
• Lazer Focus change isn't going to be enough alone to bring Marksmanship up from it's low sustain position
  
• Maybe agitating energies needs a more significant damage buff to help sustain? I worry that buffing too many of its base abilities would just result in it having far too high burst
  

 

 

Mercenary / Commando

Bodyguard / Combat Medic:

• The Merc AoE morph needs buffing, I think healing scan should straight up heal two targets without needing the silly puddle. If it's too much, make the second target receive 50% of the healing
  
• Rest of the changes are nice, though I really do still want to see a morph that allows you to refresh Kolto Shell without needing to reapply it. It feels really bad reapplying it mid fight, so having a way to refresh it with idk, rapid scan or refresh one charge with each use of kolto shot, would be great
  

 

No buffs to Arsenal or IO seems strange considering that they are still both underperforming a bit.

I did really like the changes to both of them last patch but they need a little extra imo.

Arsenal needs buffs that aren't just to crit damage. At the very least I'd give heatseeking missile an auto crit so that it always feels impactful to use - same as energy burst currently works for AP.

 

 

Powertech / Vanguard

Advanced Prototype:

• Very large amount of nerfs here, maybe too much we'll see
  
• The new tactical seems interesting rather than just being a "more damage" tactical
  

 

Pyrotech / Plasmatech:

• Small nerfs seem fine, I still want a better way to spread incendiary missile (i.e. with flame sweep)
  

 

 

Sorcerer / Sage

Corruption / Seer: (I may be slightly biased here)

• Small buffs are great, though my main issues still haven't been addressed - those being a lack of force regen, AoE healing and POLARIZING IS STILL GARBAGE
   
  
• Corrupted Bastion change still doesn't feel good enough even at 15%. I'd buff the numbers even further and cause your next dark heal, rally or infusion to cost 0 force to make it your "sustained burst" option
  
• Dark resurgence should affect 8 players like it did on the pts before 7.0 released, that or rework it so that innervate chain heals between up to 4 targets because Sorc mass AoE aint great.
   
  Now for the thing I've complained about for literally a year at this point:
  POLARIZING IS STILL GARBAGE
  A measly 3% buff to an ability once every couple minutes will NEVER be considered over Dark Resurgence or Corrupted Bastion and I cannot believe it still has not been buffed or reworked.
   
  If you want it to stay as a morph that only works during polarity shift, increase the healing buff and cause innervate to be free and auto crit for the duration of polarity shift.
  What does this do? It means if you have tanked your force because of a burst window, you can pop polarity shift to not only guarantee you restack force surge, but also immediately start regenerating force and be able to emergency heal a single target.
  (I'm just really really annoyed it's been a year and it still hasn't been changed )
  

 

Madness / Balance:

New tactical is awful because of the slow but it sounds like that is already being addressed. Slows do not affect such a large quantity of PvE enemies in high level content that it's not worth bothering with it. In PvP, there are already so many slows that it's just annoying.

Bring back the old tactical that causes Demolish to hit every target affected by a deathmark. Simple as that.

• Disintegration buff is neat (so long as it's alongside what disintegration currently does)
  
• I'm assuming "Force Horrors" is just buffing the second part of Disintegration which is great
  
• More force lightning damage is more lightning !
  
• Interesting that Tempest of Rho was causing more procs than it should have, guessing that's the reason for the above buffs so this patch seems like a bit of a sidegrade for Madness when really it could do with keeping the buffs AND that "incorrect" application of Tempest of Rho.
  

 

Lightning / Telekinesis:

• I don't know why this combat style is being nerfed so much
  
• Looks like halted offensive might never be used again but we'll see. It was nice being able to use chain lightning more often for a while
  

 

 

Assassin / Shadow

Deception / Infiltration:

• Making awakened flame more viable for sustain is nice
  
• There is still a massive bug or issue with Deception for Voltaic Engine. If you use lacerate after building your voltage stacks with voltaic slash, your crit bonus gets removed until you use voltaic slash again. This means you cannot effectively use your AoE abilities mid fight. I still don't know if this is intended behaviour or not
  
• Severing slash is still NEVER going to be taken by me and here is why:
   
  Severing Slash cannot be taken by a DPS Assassin for one simple reason. Force Shroud for some ungodly reason is not a baseline ability. Assassins have 1 defensive ability without Force Shroud and it's on a 2 minute cooldown that doesn't affect tech or force attacks. (Sure you could count force cloak as one if you want too)
   
  How would I fix this? Simple! I would add Force Shroud baseline to all Assassins. Then, I would add Spike as the high level option for DPS Assassins to replace it (also buff it to be usable outside of stealth).
  Is this too much CC? Nope, because that PvP rework is coming and the devs will definitely be reworking resolve and "stun wars" right?!
  This opens up Assassins of every kind to take severing slash - though I'd also increase its base damage by at least 50% if not even doubling it as right now it only does about 50% more damage than lacerate while also being a CONE ATTACK on a 12 second cooldown.
  Finally, it means we get to use spike again! It's such a cool ability and I miss it.
  

 

Hatred / Serenity:

• The nerf to Two Time Trouble is massive but I understand why it's being done. I'll be sad to see it go though. I'd increase the rate that it procs for non assassinate melee attacks from 50% to idk, 65-75% or something to compensate. This would encourage you to use thrash as intended while also retaining similar damage levels.
  
• Whoever thought to increase the amount of force restored by Fulguration from 3 to 5, thank you. This is an amazing example of a compensation buff in return for nerfing Two Time Trouble. Using thrash more will tank force regen, and this helps a little with that.
  
• Pervasive Death buff is great!
  
• Hungering Force buff is also neat
  
• As mentioned for deception, I will never take Severing Slash so long as it shares a row with Force Shroud. Replace Force Shroud with Spike or something else and buff Severing Slash, then we'll talk.
  

 

 

Finally, Darkness / Kinetic Combat:

Roots and slows are meaningless in PvP, though I see this has already been reverted. A different change would be for Severing Slash to generate twice as much threat and reduce the cooldown of mass mind control for each target hit. This would allow you to much more easily maintain threat levels on large groups of targets - even better than you already can while allowing the current damage reduction buff to be filtered into the rest of the combat style.

 

 

Took a while but we got there.

I'm really glad to see that we're finally getting some more consistent balancing and responses from the devs within the same thread!!!

 

If there is one thing to take away from all that text; for the love of the force, buff Polarizing for Corruption Sorcerers.

[sithBracer]

I see, I guess I cannot relate to that. But in NiM there were rarely more than 3 specs good, don't misunderstand the content was easy enough that you were able to bring underperforming classes, but the meta was always 3 or 4 specs.

 

I don't believe balance is possible. There will always be a class better and that is not a bad thing, every class deserves their time in the sun, except concealment because I hate them. If you now factor in PvP balance too you just end up with people crying about juggernaut dcds even though jug is strong in PvE, what do you do then? Buff it? Nerf it? It just isn't possible. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't get upset about lightning being nerfed, it will come back eventually and that is just the risk you take when being an OTP, if you raid NiM and you can truely only play one class you should really look into another, preferably meta, spec until your main is back. Switch it up a little, the only thing that can happen is that you get a bunch of funny moments! For example: I'm tank main, but when we got bored we did a wishlist and I wished foe DI on PT dps, it was fun! There are so many good memes from that time... as I said, sometimes people just overthink balancing. They straight up theorycraft their own fun out of the game.

 

Most don't even do NiM content. There are like maybe 3 or 4 teams left that still do it and I doubt all of these sorc whiners are them. They just want their preferred class to be on top for some weird ego reasons.

 

Most people don't really care about balance. I never saw any of them complaining when sin was PvE trash tier for the last, idk 10 years? I didn't see them complaining in 4.X when IO merc was on top and people only brought that into the high end ops. In fact, they instead were complaining about merc in solo ranked (which they also didn't play btw). The amount of people who actually care about true balance on these forums, you can count on your hand.

Edited September 2, 2022 by sithBracer

[WoRei]

Most don't even do NiM content. There are like maybe 3 or 4 teams left that still do it and I doubt all of these sorc whiners are them. They just want their preferred class to be on top for some weird ego reasons.

 

Most people don't really care about balance. I never saw any of them complaining when sin was PvE trash tier for the last, idk 10 years? I didn't see them complaining in 4.X when IO merc was on top and people only brought that into the high end ops. In fact, they instead were complaining about merc in solo ranked (which they also didn't play btw). The amount of people who actually care about true balance on these forums, you can count on your hand.

 

No one wants his class to be "on top", but to be EQUAL (!).

Nerfing b-tier specs while many a-tier specs are not nerfed is just PLAIN STUPID.

Instead of nerfing, Bioware could just buff the lower tiers up to the a-tier and that would mean what? BALANCE

Edited September 2, 2022 by WoRei

[Appleshauce]

Most don't even do NiM content. There are like maybe 3 or 4 teams left that still do it and I doubt all of these sorc whiners are them. They just want their preferred class to be on top for some weird ego reasons.

 

Most people don't really care about balance. I never saw any of them complaining when sin was PvE trash tier for the last, idk 10 years? I didn't see them complaining in 4.X when IO merc was on top and people only brought that into the high end ops. In fact, they instead were complaining about merc in solo ranked (which they also didn't play btw). The amount of people who actually care about true balance on these forums, you can count on your hand.

 

There are a ton of people TRYING to get I to NiM, but current balance makes it pretty much impossible. I run deception main, and every NiM group I try to join says "no deception" fine, wasn't happy about that but fine. So I picked 4 dps specs in the last couple weeks, that would be brought, not the top 3 that they look for, but the ones they where at least willing to bring. Lightning, Madness, Hatred, and AP. Spent alot of hours recently learning them in hopes of getting NiM invites. Only to wake up 2 days ago to find ALL FRIGGIN 4, are getting nerfed. My only motivation to keep playing is to work towards NiM and HM R4, now it seems my only options are to give up, or reroll anni/veng or Pyro, none of which I enjoy. If I play 7 dps specs, and not one is even considered for NiM content, it's a problem with the game not me. 330+ gear being locked behind r4 hm just makes it worse. I'm dying to try r4 hm, but refuse to play anni/veng/Pyro to do it. I see no future progress in my future in this game now, and I am FRIGGIN MAD ABOUT IT. Tempted to try anni/Pyro and veng just so they get nerfed, since apparently everything I try to learn gets nerfed.

[xxSHOONYxx]

No one wants his class to be "on top", but to be EQUAL (!).

Nerfing b-tier specs while many a-tier specs are not nerfed is just PLAIN STUPID.

Instead of nerfing, Bioware could just buff the lower tiers up to the a-tier and that would mean what? BALANCE

 

Equality of classes will never be a real thing in practice. You have boss encounters that requiere specific classes, or speific specs like on izax nim anything that doesnt have dot spread is worthless, now maybe not so much with juggernaut broken shatter burst that deals full damage to the adds. I have no issue with some bosses at the high end tier requiereing profficiency of more than one class though, makes it more fun in my eyes, but easier content like legay nim or hm should be able to do with any class and spec.

 

Even if all classes did the same exact dps on a dummy it would not be equal, some classes have overloaded raid utility, others are melee so when you have to swap a lot ranged have the upper hand since they have no downtime or have to waste a gcd on a very low damage gap closer, others are dot classes and when they have to swap to other targets that die fairly fast it takes time to apply dots and ramp up the damage so burst classes have the upper hand, or when there are more than 2 targets with a lot of health dot classes have the upper hand. Which is why for me the balance they intended to have before made some sense, of having melee dot classes at the top and ranged burst at the bottom and then melee burst and ranged dot in between those two

 

There are a ton of people TRYING to get I to NiM, but current balance makes it pretty much impossible. I run deception main, and every NiM group I try to join says "no deception" fine, wasn't happy about that but fine. So I picked 4 dps specs in the last couple weeks, that would be brought, not the top 3 that they look for, but the ones they where at least willing to bring. Lightning, Madness, Hatred, and AP. Spent alot of hours recently learning them in hopes of getting NiM invites. Only to wake up 2 days ago to find ALL FRIGGIN 4, are getting nerfed. My only motivation to keep playing is to work towards NiM and HM R4, now it seems my only options are to give up, or reroll anni/veng or Pyro, none of which I enjoy. If I play 7 dps specs, and not one is even considered for NiM content, it's a problem with the game not me. 330+ gear being locked behind r4 hm just makes it worse. I'm dying to try r4 hm, but refuse to play anni/veng/Pyro to do it. I see no future progress in my future in this game now, and I am FRIGGIN MAD ABOUT IT. Tempted to try anni/Pyro and veng just so they get nerfed, since apparently everything I try to learn gets nerfed.

 

You should be able to do any legacy op with any class right now with a few exceptions like marksman or arsenal, the nerfs would still make that possible if you are good at your class. The issue is that they are nerfing everything but 2 of the 3 classes on top when it comes to pve and will widen the gap even more than there is now. But to be fair too, if you are new or is a new group into nim it also helps a lot to bring meta classes not because of their damage but their raid utility to get every advantage you can get and kill bosses.

Go for anni, they have always since i have memory been a meta pve class

Edited September 2, 2022 by xxSHOONYxx

[UinixLP]

MM is currently the weakest DPS Spec by far in PvE

 

Introduction / Issues of current MM

 

MM at the moment has the lowest sustained DPS of any DPS-class ingame, by quite a large margain. Even Arsenal is doing almost 5% more than MM. Adding insult to injury, the class also feels extremly unrewarding. The main issue with playstyle is that Laze Target (our main offensive cooldown) is spammed with little effect, cause Ambush does not do any real damage (as comparison with full 340 Ambush hits around 70k ish while explosive probe hits for 85k+).

 

This post is there to give an option on how both of those issues can be improved.

 

Note: This post is aimed at Pve mainly.

 

Proposed Change:

 

 

To change the above i would propose to change the LVL 43 choice “Ballistic Retribution”

 

Current : “Critically hitting with a weapon attack restores 2 energy.”

 

New: “Critically hitting with a weapon attack restores 2 energy. Using Laze Target makes all your weapon attacks critically hit within the next 7 seconds.”

 

Explanation

 

This would be around a 2k-2.5k dps increase (assuming a Laze Target every 45s, used together with Sniper Volley). Bringing MM right up there with Arsenal.

 

Laze Target would also be quite a powerful offensive cooldown (that cant be spammed anymore, since that choice interferes with this) for both ST and AoE, sort of like a mini fuel.

 

MM would still be one of the lowest sustained specs, but providing some of the strongest (not strongest) burst windows in PvE (behind pyro and IO). This would also be of usage during AoE phases since it buffs Suppressive Fire aswell as AoE Penetrating Blast.

 

 

Thanks

 

special thanks to Tarvec for helping with formatting and stuff

[toadxfrog]

I am sure that someone has already posted math behind lightning/telekinetics changes and how badly they will damage class' viability, but i will do this once again. All the calculations I have made were done on my 6,5 mil dummy parse using current standart rotation which most players use (my parse is not close to perfect one but still gives me an idea).

I will start with Halted Offensive cast time increase by 0.5 seconds. In parse I used there was 50 HO used through out the duration of the fight, half of them are hardcasts. This change would increase my TTK by 12 s (24 x 0,5 the first HO won't increase TTK as it is a pre-cast). That is roughly 6% increase in TTK and therefore 6% decrease in DPS. I am assuming point of that change is to remove hardcasting of HO from lightning/telekinetics rotation. I have also checked current DPS output of 6.x priority system (without hardcasted HO), it's roughly the same DPS as I expect from 7.0 rotation with nerfed cast timings.

Next is 15% damage decrease of HO. It obviously hits 7.0 rotation harder then 6.x priority system as it uses double as much HOs. Damage done by HO is ~32% of overall spec's DPS in rotation and ~17% in old priority. Decreasing it's DPS by 15% decreases overall dps by ~5% and ~2.5% accordingly. So that makes an overall 11% and 8.5% DPS nerfs, that makes 6.x a better option once again but just unfair numbers-wise to sorc players.

These were only 2 of the changes you are planing to make to the spec and that's already too much. Such nerf will make lightning/telekinetics one of the worst specs in game if not the worst and it's already not close to best ones. As it seems you are trying to get rid of hardcasts in lightning/telekinetics rotation, but there is a way to do it without hindering spec's relevance in harder content.

For example proceed increasing cast time of HO to 3 s and decrease it's dps by 15% (8.5% nerf if priority is used) but whenever lightning storm buff is triggered trigger an additional buff that will make next HO deal 35% more damage. This makes sure that only HO's which were instacasted get a DPS increase. That is going to be a 5,5% DPS if you are going to use 6.x priority and 8% for 7.0 standart rotation compared to current numbers. A much more fair nerf that what you are offering right now. To further strengthen difference between those 2 ways, you can increase damage done by lightning bolt by 10% as that's the ability which is going to be used instead of hardcasted HO. That will be a 4% damage decrease for priority and 7,25% for rotation. That makes for a fair nerf yet increases class' mobility overall improving QoL.

I do not imply that all of my calculations are correct, and the idea presented is the best solution for the problem.

I hope someone on your team is going to read this and take the idea in consideration. Despite everyone already thinking you are not listening to the community, I am hoping that you are going to deal with unfair nerf to an average class. I hope that I am not going to lose my favourite class when 7.1.1 goes life.

If you have read this thank you for your attention.

[ZUHFB]

MM is currently the weakest DPS Spec by far in PvE

 

Introduction / Issues of current MM

 

MM at the moment has the lowest sustained DPS of any DPS-class ingame, by quite a large margain. Even Arsenal is doing almost 5% more than MM. Adding insult to injury, the class also feels extremly unrewarding. The main issue with playstyle is that Laze Target (our main offensive cooldown) is spammed with little effect, cause Ambush does not do any real damage (as comparison with full 340 Ambush hits around 70k ish while explosive probe hits for 85k+).

 

This post is there to give an option on how both of those issues can be improved.

 

Note: This post is aimed at Pve mainly.

 

Proposed Change:

 

 

To change the above i would propose to change the LVL 43 choice “Ballistic Retribution”

 

Current : “Critically hitting with a weapon attack restores 2 energy.”

 

New: “Critically hitting with a weapon attack restores 2 energy. Using Laze Target makes all your weapon attacks critically hit within the next 7 seconds.”

 

Explanation

 

This would be around a 2k-2.5k dps increase (assuming a Laze Target every 45s, used together with Sniper Volley). Bringing MM right up there with Arsenal.

 

Laze Target would also be quite a powerful offensive cooldown (that cant be spammed anymore, since that choice interferes with this) for both ST and AoE, sort of like a mini fuel.

 

MM would still be one of the lowest sustained specs, but providing some of the strongest (not strongest) burst windows in PvE (behind pyro and IO). This would also be of usage during AoE phases since it buffs Suppressive Fire aswell as AoE Penetrating Blast.

 

 

Thanks

 

special thanks to Tarvec for helping with formatting and stuff

 

no way! marksman hits so hard dude, I got hit by ambush for 72k and it killed me! Marksman does need a nerf if anything!

[ZUHFB]

Ok like no kap now

 

they thought nerfing the already garbage utility severing slash was a big thing when most people didn't, no shouldn't even use it

 

but

 

lightning and madness nerfs are still there

a wasted AP tactical which will make you overheated if anything and it is still worse than 5% dps

[Chryptyk]

I haven't PVPed in 7 at all, so i need to ask, do lightning sorcs use the new or the old rotation in warzones? In my mind, wouldn't they use the old one to maintain mobility? In which case, increasing the cast time of HO only punishes PVEers, and at which point i ask why is this necessary? It's not like lightning is overperforming, especially when compared to melee specs.

[WoRei]

Equality of classes will never be a real thing in practice. You have boss encounters that requiere specific classes, or speific specs like on izax nim anything that doesnt have dot spread is worthless, now maybe not so much with juggernaut broken shatter burst that deals full damage to the adds. I have no issue with some bosses at the high end tier requiereing profficiency of more than one class though, makes it more fun in my eyes, but easier content like legay nim or hm should be able to do with any class and spec.

 

Even if all classes did the same exact dps on a dummy it would not be equal, some classes have overloaded raid utility, others are melee so when you have to swap a lot ranged have the upper hand since they have no downtime or have to waste a gcd on a very low damage gap closer, others are dot classes and when they have to swap to other targets that die fairly fast it takes time to apply dots and ramp up the damage so burst classes have the upper hand, or when there are more than 2 targets with a lot of health dot classes have the upper hand. Which is why for me the balance they intended to have before made some sense, of having melee dot classes at the top and ranged burst at the bottom and then melee burst and ranged dot in between those two

 

I dont care about the dummy parse, I care about operation usability and dmg. If only melee specs are needed because they provide major utilities AND more dmg output for the group then something is broken.

lightning is far from dealing the most dmg on bosses - see the parse leaderboard, there are only melee specs at the top which also provide more utility.

Additionally, in R4, there is no huge benefit for range classes. There is so much running for the whole group that a range class with cast times (like lightning) has no advantage over a melee class.

Hence, balance for me means that every class is viable for raids

[NoahSiess]

Hello Chris Durel

 

My Friends and Raidgroup Members did read Your new Post for the class changes in 7.1.1,

And we was Looking for the Lightning Sorc changes So we did a bit of Maths and those changes what you want to do will destroy the class. It will be a straight 3k dps nerf for Nothing. The Change with the 3 second Haltent offensive cast are ok because you can Always Play the old Rotation from 6.0 without hard casting Haltent Offensive. And some skill Points didn’t work so still it has not even his full capability,it makes no sense and that you give him after thunderblast an instant heal is just waste in pve and not even so good in PVP. Sorc Need his crit Bonus or otherwise it makes no DMG. And to nerf the secend most DMG ability is just stupid its like you would remove autocrit on thunderingblast. If you nerf it that way nobody is playing Lightning sorc.it would be like merc dps nobody want to Play it,you can just Play melee instead of range.Sorc is At the Moment the only usefull range dps class if you want peoples to Play more classes you shouldn’t destroy other classes instead you should buff the lower dps classes and nerf the high end classes and not some decent dps classes like sorc. I Play now Long enouth to now which classes are good on bosses and which are not but if you nerf range to hard nobody want to Play range and it should’t be a meta with only melee dps for example 4 maras or 2 maras 2 pts 3 pts 1 mara thats just wrong to nerf range that much so that ist dead.

 

If you want more informations contact me or my friend on discord Kiwi#5228/ Cogesh#1111

[xxSHOONYxx]

I dont care about the dummy parse, I care about operation usability and dmg. If only melee specs are needed because they provide major utilities AND more dmg output for the group then something is broken.

lightning is far from dealing the most dmg on bosses - see the parse leaderboard, there are only melee specs at the top which also provide more utility.

Additionally, in R4, there is no huge benefit for range classes. There is so much running for the whole group that a range class with cast times (like lightning) has no advantage over a melee class.

Hence, balance for me means that every class is viable for raids

 

In IP-CPT lightning is still an avarage class, but you will never see it on top dps because they will be clicking panels since they have no taunt while still be able to hit from afar some skills. Unless you know the floor pattern hardcasting HO won;t always be an option but you can use 6.0 rotation and be very mobile.

 

In watchdog ranged are requiered, most groups use only 2 melee or 3 if they blow up the first cirle, in fact the top parse in hm is from a lightning sorc.

 

In kanoth ranged classes are very good too, especially with a self cleanse if the healers are falling behind but in that fight is hard to see dps because those people doing a lot of damage are usually the ones that never clean tiles, barely do or don't self cleanse. And ranged help a lot to get the special achievement of the fight.

 

In Dominique sorc is probably the best ranged, with phase walk you dont have to worry about the first two knocks on first phase and you dont nead to go down for watchdog or anything and if that isn't enough you can stay afk if your group has a juggernaut and is a kill. You will never see in top parse on dominique a sorc or any other class because anything that is not a jug will probably not show.

 

Sorc while not being one of the top meta clases it still has it uses and totally requiered in some fights like Styrak, Izax or Huntmaster.

 

That doesn't mean that i want sorc nerfed, my issue with the nerfs is that if they went overboard with the hp reduction of ops and now they are nerfing dps because of it they also need to nerf marauder and juggernaut, or just buff marskman arsenal and leave the others like they are now until raid utility and tactials can be changed to make it more fair

Edited September 2, 2022 by xxSHOONYxx

[sithBracer]

No one wants his class to be "on top", but to be EQUAL (!).

Nerfing b-tier specs while many a-tier specs are not nerfed is just PLAIN STUPID.

Instead of nerfing, Bioware could just buff the lower tiers up to the a-tier and that would mean what? BALANCE

 

Suuuuuurrrreeee you do. I remember for the last 10 years when assassin was in the trash you were fighting for that equality every day ... oh right, you couldn't care less.

 

Funny how you champion the fight for equality only now ...

 

As someone already mentioned, you can do any of the legacy NiM ops with almost any spec other than arsenal and marksman. And as someone else pointed you, sorc can still be used in R-4. Just admit you want your class on top, no one is buying the "equality" nonsense.

[BelisariusD]

Hey Chris,

 

I just wanted to leave a message here for what the consequences of this is going to be for my own raiding team.

 

We're a small group of friend who have been raiding together for six months. We've been working on learning HM dungeons, and when R-4 came out we ran it first night. We've been running it 2-3 times a week since then, and last night we managed our best attempt ever on the final boss (in story mode), getting her down to 2%.

 

The changes you are making to the DPS classes are going to set us back weeks.

 

Our core team is 1 tank, 2 healers, and 5 damagers. Of that team, our damagers include: 1 Serenity Shadow, 2 Telekinetic Sages, 1 AP Vanguard, and 1 Guardian. The nerf to our damage team—which, we're not the absolute best players in the world, admittedly, or we would have successfully finished R-4 by now—is going to be devastating. I'm the Serenity Shadow and I'm going to have to re-learn my rotation, and both of our sages are considering changing their class entirely or just becoming full-time healers. There is no chance that we're going to be able to finish R-4 story mode after this; we were just on the cusp and need every ounce of DPS we have.

 

We're about ready to give up on R-4, and R-4 is the only avenue forward to progression. We were learning it specifically so we could eventually progress to Hard Mode, and work on getting 340 gear. With these changes, that is going to become impossible

[ZUHFB]

I feel like there are common misunderstandings of what balancing is, balancing IS NOT that all classes are equal. They aren't supposed to and couldn't. A balanced game would quite simply be boring.

 

None of these nerfs matter in 99% of the content, to put it simply this doesn't change anything. The reason lightning gets deleted is that the intended playstyle of the class is to no hardcast HO, having casuals and all of these people hardcast HO is not what they want from the class, so they delete that. Then they get new information from lightning, then they adjust the damage of deemed appropriate.

 

Annihilation is good because it has so much healing and utility, PT is just made for raiding. All the other classes are differently bad versions of either one, some ranged, some meele but it doesn't really matter in, only in HM/MM raiding - where the HO gets hardcasted, but even then the solution to killing a boss isn't to go from lightning to deception - it's to bring more PTs. This is not good. But for Lightning this means that the class is going to be AND already is irrelevant in terms of DPS in raiding and ONLY class feeling is important, HO is a bad class feeling, so remove that and see how it goes.

 

Why balancing is impossible: Let's say you play... IO Merc, what do you bring to a raidteam: a raidbuff you aren't going to use, a knockback that is bad, no AOE DR(not sure I don't play it), no damage. When Annihilation: Heals more, does more damage, has predation, has AOE dr, has insane dcds AND a stun immunity. Then the question is ok, how much DPS is the healing and predation worth? 6k? So Anni should just do 6k less because it heals 10k and has a pred? But then what if you don't take pred, how to you regain the 6k DPS nevermind pred is a unique marauder ability that adds to their class identity.

Edited September 3, 2022 by ZUHFB

[Brittaany_Banks]

What possible metrics are you looking at to sit there and confidently say Lightning/Telekinetics and Madness/Balance need the nerfs they are getting?

 

Neither spec tops the dps charts.

 

I play mainly balance/madness and I have to say those specs are mid tier EVEN WITH the bugged tempest of rho so nerfing its probability chance is a shot in the leg those specs do not need. We need MORE people playing ranged classes not less. I am so god damn tired of seeing nothing but melee classes in OPs all the effing time. I know you have metrics on which classes are being played most often and I guarantee it ain't sorc or sage.

 

Your new Vet Mode R4 is an absolute effing joke. So much so that your standard 2 tanks 4 dps 2 healers simply does not work in there, so your answer is to nerf MORE dpsers? Have you guys just given up at developing this game at this point? 7.0 has been LITERALLY the biggest let down in this games history for what was promised. Get your heads on straight.

[DeannaVoyager]

I feel like there are common misunderstandings of what balancing is, balancing IS NOT that all classes are equal. They aren't supposed to and couldn't. A balanced game would quite simply be boring.

 

In your opinion. You speak as someone who needs to have an edge over everyone else to feel good about yourself, but most players are not like that. Most players actually prefer balance and equality.

 

Also: Ever heard of diversity? What is the point of having so many classes in the game if only 2-3 are viable for endgame? Just delete all other classes from the game, then we'll see what boring really is. Soon after that there will be no balancing issues because there won't be any players left. Problem solved?

[AdjeYo]

I feel like there are common misunderstandings of what balancing is, balancing IS NOT that all classes are equal. They aren't supposed to and couldn't. A balanced game would quite simply be boring.

 

None of these nerfs matter in 99% of the content, to put it simply this doesn't change anything. The reason lightning gets deleted is that the intended playstyle of the class is to no hardcast HO, having casuals and all of these people hardcast HO is not what they want from the class, so they delete that. Then they get new information from lightning, then they adjust the damage of deemed appropriate.

 

Annihilation is good because it has so much healing and utility, PT is just made for raiding. All the other classes are differently bad versions of either one, some ranged, some meele but it doesn't really matter in, only in HM/MM raiding - where the HO gets hardcasted, but even then the solution to killing a boss isn't to go from lightning to deception - it's to bring more PTs. This is not good. But for Lightning this means that the class is going to be AND already is irrelevant in terms of DPS in raiding and ONLY class feeling is important, HO is a bad class feeling, so remove that and see how it goes.

 

Why balancing is impossible: Let's say you play... IO Merc, what do you bring to a raidteam: a raidbuff you aren't going to use, a knockback that is bad, no AOE DR(not sure I don't play it), no damage. When Annihilation: Heals more, does more damage, has predation, has AOE dr, has insane dcds AND a stun immunity. Then the question is ok, how much DPS is the healing and predation worth? 6k? So Anni should just do 6k less because it heals 10k and has a pred? But then what if you don't take pred, how to you regain the 6k DPS nevermind pred is a unique marauder ability that adds to their class identity.

 

Perfect balance does not really exist (as in every class being equally viable), but that doesn't mean more equality between classes isn't a good thing. In your example, the obvious solution is to improve the raid utility of Mercs, not to have IO do 6k more dps than Anni. If they're more in line with utility, one might bring a merc sometime. They don't have to be exactly equal in terms of utility, but as long as they're close enough there's some justification for bringing the technically worse class. And ideally you end up in a situation where some classes are slightly better on some bosses, while other classes are slightly better at other bosses.

 

Of course there'll still be the best classes in practice, but at least people can play and do well with the other classes as well. I don't think Swtor is as bad at this as people say, most classes are pretty viable. But Madness, Merc dps and Marksmanship definitely need a little bump up to be more viable. Sins, Maras, Juggs, PTs are all good. And we'll have to see about Operatives, the AoE DR should help them a lot.

[AdjeYo]

Nerf to Kolto Burst seems very fair and very expected. Operatives never needed more group healing, it was an insane thing to add. Might actually pick up one of the other two now. Will have to see how much Reactive Substance can heal before deciding which is better (if it's less than the 10% increase that Kolto Stim now gets, I see little point in it, as Kolto Stim would be burstier and heal more).

 

Less thrilled about the nerf to Nano Mark, as it one of the few ways to actually effectively burst heal on Operative. Might still even keep it at 10%, but that's a pretty big nerf to Medicine's already weak area.

 

Thrilled about AoE DR on Operative dps, we might see them pop into some ops groups sometimes now.

 

The new AP tactical seems somewhat annoying to use. In PvE it would be better if Magnetic Blast couldn't trigger it, as that slow is just useless. The other two effects seem a lot better, but you can't always line it up perfectly. Maybe give Magnetic Blast a little extra so it also somewhat more useful in PvE? Not as good as Energy Burst and Rail Shot obviously, I like there being extra payoff if you line those up with Thermal Detonator, but something. I would propose venting 5 heat in addition to the slow when detonating with Magnetic Blast.

Edited September 3, 2022 by AdjeYo

[ZUHFB]

In your opinion. You speak as someone who needs to have an edge over everyone else to feel good about yourself, but most players are not like that. Most players actually prefer balance and equality.

 

Also: Ever heard of diversity? What is the point of having so many classes in the game if only 2-3 are viable for endgame? Just delete all other classes from the game, then we'll see what boring really is. Soon after that there will be no balancing issues because there won't be any players left. Problem solved?

 

Again, only 2 or 3 classes will be meta AS I EXPLAINED. The rest is simply worse but changing this meta is balancing, not trying to do the impossible. You cannot have a balanced game, you cannot know how a balanced game feels like so you can't even have that opinion. If you think ANY game is balanced you simply aren't good enough yet. No game is balanced.

[AdjeYo]

Again, only 2 or 3 classes will be meta AS I EXPLAINED. The rest is simply worse but changing this meta is balancing, not trying to do the impossible. You cannot have a balanced game, you cannot know how a balanced game feels like so you can't even have that opinion. If you think ANY game is balanced you simply aren't good enough yet. No game is balanced.

 

Chess is