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Class Balance Changes Feedback


JackieKo

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  • Dev Post
  • How does the adjusted threat and damage output of tank classes feel?
  • Darkness Assassin and Annihilation Marauder’s rotations have been smoothed out, does this feel better or worse than 7.0?
  • The Ward of the Continuum tactical has been redesigned to synergize better with Darkness Assassin mod choices. Have you tried it? What do you think?
  • What are your impressions of the redesigned Annihilation mod choices?
  • How do you feel about the overall state of tanks in PVE?
  • How do you feel about the overall state of tanks in PVP?
  • What do you feel tanks are missing in PVP or PVE?
  • What are things you would like to see in the future for tanks?
  • What are your impressions on the itemizations around tanks?
  • Medals and Achievements for PVP
  • Would you like to see additional achievements added on a bi-seasonal or seasonal basis?
  • Do achievements motivate you to play more PVP?
  • Do you feel medals should be easier or harder to achieve?
  • What actions in PVP would you like to see represented in medals?
     
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  • Dev Post

Balance Changes Coming to Game Update 7.2

Hey everyone, Shabir here with another round of balance changes. On this pass, we took a look at Tanks across all 3 disciplines and made adjustments to bring up their Threat generation as well as  damage in line with our targets for tanks. There are also adjustments made to Marauder/Sentinel and Mercenary/Commando. We look forward to seeing your feedback on these balance changes and will post updates on any changes that may occur in this thread. Be sure to check out these changes on the PTS and leave feedback here. Thanks and take it easy. 

General

  • Threat generation has been increased for all tank combat styles.

 

Assassin/Shadow

Darkness/Kinetic Combat

  • Depredating Volts/Cascading Debris damage has been increased by 5%

  • Mounting Darkness/Pulsating Force now increases Discharge/Force Breach and Wither's/Slow Time’s damage by 30%, up from 20%. 

  • Energize/Particle Acceleration now additionally reduces the Force cost of Shock/Project by 15 while in effect. 

  • Assassinate/Spinning Strike now has a 100% chance to trigger Energize/Particle Acceleration.

  • Spike's/Spinning Kick’s stun duration is increased by 1 second. 

  • Spike/Spinning Kick now applies 10% damage reduction to the user whenever it deals damage for 6 seconds.

  • The Dark Forces/Light Forces ability mod now heals for 2% of max health whenever damage is dealt to a taunted target, up from 1%. 

  • Increased the damage reduction given by the Dark Charge/Combat Technique passive ability from 2% to 5%. (15)

  • Severing Slash/Cleaving Cut has been redesigned for Darkness/Kinetic Combat. It now does the following:

    • Strikes targets in a cone, dealing weapon damage, immobilizing targets for 2 seconds, then slowing them for an additional 6 seconds once the immobilize effect wears off. (68)

  • The Ward of the Continuum tactical has been redesigned. It now does the following:

    • Dark Ward/Kinetic Ward now has 10 charges and Dark Bulwark/Kinetic Bulwark can no longer restore charges. Consuming a charge of Dark Ward/Kinetic Ward increases defense chance by 1%. This effect stacks up to 10 times and lasts for 20 seconds or until Dark Ward/Kinetic Ward is reactivated. (43)

  • Fixed an issue where Reckless Defense/Potent Defense was incorrectly adding multiple stacks with Depredating Volts/Cascading Debris.

  • Gloom Ward now does 50% more damage upon Dark Ward/Kinetic Ward breaking from damage.

  • Increased the duration of Reckless Defense/Potent Defense from 6 seconds to 10 seconds. 


 

Juggernaut/Guardian

  • The Warmonger/Battlefield Command utility has been redesigned. It now additionally enables Vicious Throw/Dispatch or Hew/Whirling Blade after using Force Charge.

  • War Master utility has been redesigned per discipline, with Immortal replacing War Master with a new utility called Field Commander/Front Line Veteran.

Vengeance/Vigilance 

  • War Master's has been redesigned to add movement-impairing and push and pull effects to the immunity granted by Unstoppable. It now grants 20% damage reduction while Unstoppable is active. War Master no longer grants Vicious Throw/Dispatch from Force Charge/Force Leap.

  • Brawn has been replaced by Deafening Defense/Commanding Awe, which increases damage reduction at all times and by an additional 15% while Endure Pain/Enure is active.

    • Deafening Defense/Commanding Awe was previously a passive gained at level 1, although hidden from the tree. This is now part of the ability tree at level 51.

Rage/ Focus

  • War Master's has been redesigned to add movement-impairing and push and pull effects to the immunity granted by Unstoppable. It now grants 20% damage reduction while Unstoppable is active. War Master no longer grants Vicious Throw/Dispatch from Force Charge/Force Leap.

Immortal/ Defense

  • War Master has been replaced by Field Commander/Front Line Veteran. It reads:

    • Force Charge/Force Leap finishes the cooldown of Disruption/Force Kick and grants Unstoppable, granting immunity to interrupts, stuns, knockdowns, incapacitating and movement-impairing effects, and effects that push or pull you around for 4 seconds.

  • Conquering Defense/Abating Defense - Increases shield chance by 4% and reduces the cooldown of Saber Ward by 30 seconds. Crushing Blow's/Guardian Slash’s damage is increased by 12%. 

  • Lash Out/Lunge - Retaliation/Riposte consumes 1 less rage, has its damage increase by 12%, and no longer causes a global cooldown. In addition, melee and ranged defense is increased by 3%. 

  • Crushing Rage/Guardian Focus is being replaced with Crushing Grip/Stasis Mastery. 

  • Crushing Grip/Stasis Mastery - Dealing damage with Crushing Blow reduces the cooldown of Force Choke/Force Stasis by 2 seconds and generates one additional Rage/Focus. 

  • Aegis Shield/Warding Shield is replacing Targeting Assault mod. 

  • Aegis Shield/Warding Shield - Dealing damage with Aegis Assault grants a barrier of protection to up to 8 allies within 10 meters for 6 seconds.

 

 

Marauder/Sentinel

Annihilation/Watchmen

  • Deadly Saber’s/Overload Saber’s damage has been increased by 3.5%. 

  • Devious Wounds/Smoldering Burns now lasts for 6 seconds and increases bleed damage by 5%, up from 3%. 

  • Juyo Mastery now additionally increases bleed damage by 1% per stack of Juyo Form.

  • Pulverize/Mind Sear now resets the cooldown of Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw and has a 30% chance to trigger, up from 20%. 

  • Swift Demise/Acceleration Victory no longer grants stacks of Swift Demise from Annihilate/Merciless Slash. Instead, it increases Vicious Throw/Dispatch damage by 10%. The rest of its effect is unchanged. 

  • Damage done by the Blood Fury/Burning Zen ability mod has been increased by 6%. 

  • The Bleeding Center/Burning Center ability mod now generates 4 rage/Focus whenever Berserk/Zen is activated. 

  • Force Fracture damage has been increased by 10%. 

  • The Juyo Rend/Juyo Melt ability mod has been redesigned. It no longer increases the damage of Force Rend per stack of Juyo Form. Instead, it causes Force Rend to immediately grant 6 stacks of Juyo Form and build 10 Fury/Centering stacks. 

  • The Draining Center/Melting Center ability mod has been redesigned. It now reads: 

    • “Force Rend deals twice its initial damage whenever it consumes a stack of Berserk and heals you for 50% of the damage that it deals.”

Fury/Concentration

  • Reduced the critical strike damage bonus given by Vehemence/Fervor from 10% to 5%.

  • Decreased the Fury/Centering stack bonus given by Furious Discovery/Zealous Revelation from 6 to 4. 

  • The Furious Rumination/Focused Meditation ability mod has been redesigned. It no longer grants a guaranteed critical hit after activating Berserk. Instead, this has been moved to the Gravity Fissure passive. 

  • Gravity Manipulation has been redesigned and renamed Gravity Fissure. It now reads: (60)

    • “Obliterate/Zealous Leap and Force Crush/Exhaustion each consume 1 less rage. Activating Berserk/Zen causes your next direct damage attack to critically hit.”

Carnage/Combat

  • Shard of Mortis critical hit chance bonus per stack has been reduced from 25% to 15%.

 

Powertech/Vanguard 

Shield Tech/Shield Specialist

  • Payday/ Disruptor Rifle - Payday/Disruptor Rifle benefits from Heat Screen’s cooldown reduction in addition to Heat Blast. 

  • Thermal Screen - Thermal Screen tactical correctly applies its effects to Payday/Disruptor Rifle.

  • Payday’s/Disruptor Rifles damage is increased by 12%. 

  • Ion Overload - Shock has its duration increased to 9 seconds. 

  • Flame Engine/Pulse Engine - Firestorms/Ion Storms damage increased by 50% up from 40% when Flame Engine/Pulse Engine is triggered and proc chance is increased to 75% up from 50%. 

  • Shield Vents/Shield Cycler - Ion Gas Cylinders damage is increased to 10% up from 5%. 

 

Mercenary/Commando

  • Rocket Out/Propulsion Round is taking Hydraulic Overrides'/Hold the Line’s place on the ability tree as a level 68 mod choice.
  • Rocket Out/Propulsion Round includes the utility Smoke Screen.
    • Smoke Screen: Rocket Out/Propulsion Round generates a Smoke Screen when used keeping you from being pulled or lept to and making you immune to interrupts and ability pushback for 4 seconds. In addition, taking melee or tech damage within 4 seconds of previously using Rocket Out/Propulsion Round, refreshes its cooldown. These effects cannot occur more then once every 40 seconds.
  • Jet Escape/Tenacious Defense no longer reduces the cooldown of Rocket Out/Propulsion Round but instead increases the duration of Hydraulic Overrides/Hold the Line by 4 seconds.
  • Rocket Out's/Propulsion Round’s cooldown reduction from Jet Escape/Tenacious Defense is now the default cooldown for Rocket Out/Propulsion Round.

Innovative Ordnance/Assault Specialist

  • Innovative Particle Accelerator/Ionic Accelerator - Rate limit reduced from 7.5 to 7.0 seconds.
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For Annihilation/Watchman, most of the stuff seems a bit excessive, fine, but slightly excessive.  There are a few concerns I must address, and this is before even logging into PTS and seeing the changes myself:

 

Annihilation/Watchmen

  • Deadly Saber’s/Overload Saber’s damage has been increased by 3.5%. 

This seems fine.

  • Devious Wounds/Smoldering Burns now lasts for 6 seconds and increases bleed damage by 5%, up from 3%. 

Quite the jump but I shall see once I get on PTS

  • Juyo Mastery now additionally increases bleed damage by 1% per stack of Juyo Form.

This with others increasing seems a bit excessive, but I can understand why with Melting Center (can get to that in a bit)

  • Pulverize/Mind Sear now resets the cooldown of Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw and has a 30% chance to trigger, up from 20%.

This I believe is needed, there has been countless times where I rarely use TST/DST due to it not proccing enough. 

  • Swift Demise/Acceleration Victory no longer grants stacks of Swift Demise from Annihilate/Merciless Slash. Instead, it increases Vicious Throw/Dispatch damage by 10%. The rest of its effect is unchanged. 

IIRC, Swift Demise basically just add a stack for extra damage for Dispatch/Slash, if this is gone, that is good since it literally served no purpose, however, it would've been nice to modify this to refund one focus/rage but I shall see how this feels on PTS

  • Damage done by the Blood Fury/Burning Zen ability mod has been increased by 6%. 

This is like the automatic (car reference) for extra DPS

  • The Bleeding Center/Burning Center ability mod now generates 4 rage/Focus whenever Berserk/Zen is activated. 

This I believe this isn't needed since most Watchman/Annihilation players with experience would opt between the other two options

  • Force Fracture damage has been increased by 10%.

Correction:  Force Fracture is still useless when replacing Cauterize, instead, replace Slash with this, and have it used with Spiteful Saber tactical

  • The Juyo Rend/Juyo Melt ability mod has been redesigned. It no longer increases the damage of Force Rend per stack of Juyo Form. Instead, it causes Force Rend to immediately grant 6 stacks of Juyo Form and build 10 Fury/Centering stacks. 

For AOE spec I can see this being useful, as for the building centering/fury stacks, this should have stayed on Draining Center/ Melting Center, by the time we use Force Melt/Rend, we get to six stacks right away, thus with this ability being changed, we now must redo our rotation and won't benefit us ultimately.  

Example:  Watchman spec; Force leap, Zealous Strike, Merciless Slash, both of those applies debuffs on the enemy that we need to use for extra damage onto the enemy before our bigger DoTs go on.  Now I can see this as:  Force Leap, Force Melt/Rend, Cauterize, Merciless Slash, Zealous Strike.   I will test this once I get on, however I have no high hopes for it.

  • The Draining Center/Melting Center ability mod has been redesigned. It now reads: 

“Force Rend deals twice its initial damage whenever it consumes a stack of Berserk and heals you for 50% of the damage that it deals.”

This has just screwed us completely out of our DPS.  Because of this change and with Juyo Rend/Melt will only be useful for the extra heals, which is a joke at that point.  This literally screws our rotation over and can't benefit using Zen as often as required, this will not smooth out the rotation what so ever and will have to burn extra GCDs just to get Zen popped for Force Rend/Melt to do it's job.  

 

Note:  I have not jumped onto PTS as of the time of writing this, and will update once I get online.  After reading all of these changes and with out jumping into PTS yet, I can easily say this is very deceiving.  While yes, the extra burn damage from most of the bullet points, other ones I am fearing the most are bullet points 9 and 10.  I will be parsing a lot to see how bad this harms the spec.

 

 

Edited by Sikssix
Correcting self on Force Fracture
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I know it might seem a bit early but id like to know why Shard of mortis is being nerfed so much? that tactical was recently added to boost up combat back to decent numbers, and now its being reduced again. this doesn't make any sense to me and I think reducing it by a smaller amount or another adjustment somewhere else that doesn't kill their dps by so much.

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55 minutes ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

The Draining Center/Melting Center ability mod has been redesigned. It now reads: 

  • “Force Rend deals twice its initial damage whenever it consumes a stack of Berserk and heals you for 50% of the damage that it deals.”

yeah, that means you did the exact opposite of smoothing out the rotation. The reason you put 10 fury generation on this choice was that you could reliably use Force Rend with Berserk. With this change, you can't do this anymore. Especially since you also changed Bleeding Center and took away even more Fury generation. So, not only does this deal 50% of the dmg it used to, you can no longer use it as often as you used to which now means, FR will be pushed further in the rotation, which means you can't reliably use it at 2 stacks of deadly saber unless you forgo the buff - which is the point of the mod. This is very disappointing. This was by far my favourite mod and playstyle and now the fun interactive part of class is replaced with hordes of minor dps buffs that don't show up through any effort that I put in but just sort of happen along the way.  

You already once removed rewarding micromanaging when you changed Blood Fury. You now take away another thing where playing well actually made a difference. It now just matters less whether you play well or not.

1 hour ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

The Bleeding Center/Burning Center ability mod now generates 4 rage/Focus whenever Berserk/Zen is activated. 

For all those rage issues that you literally never have? But you take away the Fury generation? Which is a bigger problem now than ever before with Draining Center mod. why?

1 hour ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Force Fracture damage has been increased by 10%. 

Nobody plays Force Fracture ffs. stop trying to make it a thing or give the Rupture tactical an effect for it on top of what it already does.

I dislike having passive buffs instead of generating my DPS through active / smart use of abilities. That used to be the case with Draining Center. Now both the benefit and penalty are much lower and I'm not even sure it's worth it at all. So, you just simplified the spec to a point of mind numbing boredom with little to absolutely no more fun interactions and micromanaging to gain a dps increase. Just disappointing.

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3 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

 

Nobody plays Force Fracture ffs. stop trying to make it a thing or give the Rupture tactical an effect for it on top of what it already does.

I dislike having passive buffs instead of generating my DPS through active / smart use of abilities. That used to be the case with Draining Center. Now both the benefit and penalty are much lower and I'm not even sure it's worth it at all. So, you just simplified the spec to a point of mind numbing boredom with little to absolutely no more fun interactions and micromanaging to gain a dps increase. Just disappointing.

Correcting myself:  Not Force Fracture, my bad, I meant something else, Force Fracture is indeed useless, however it would be beneficial if it replaced Slash instead of Cauterize, while still retaining the ability used in Spiteful Saber tactical

 

 

Edited by Sikssix
Correcting self and putting on loser pants
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5 hours ago, JackieKo said:
  • Darkness Assassin and Annihilation Marauder’s rotations have been smoothed out, does this feel better or worse than 7.0?
  • What are your impressions of the redesigned Annihilation mod choices?

Sorry Shabir and Jackie, before even jumping onto the PTS I can easily tell you the changes aren't great at all.  I can understand as to why they were made and I can give you a more solid statement and feedback with these and a few other bullet points once I get on and parse as well as test a few other things.  I know my word, statement, and feedback is going to go straight to the trash the moment I post, but I always will help they will be considered.  I will respond back once I test this late tonight.

Edited by Sikssix
Had to correct who I was addressing
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I would've let Anni remain the way it is right now and simply reduce the healing. You could have changed Thirst for Rage for example and remove the healing and also reduce the healing done by Draining Center Force Rend. right now on PTS, the spec is nowhere near as fun to play as it was. None of the choices are fun to interact with. Draining Center does not provide fun burst, Juyo Rend gives you Fury to sustain Blood Fury but that's just a few minor floating numbers here and there. taking Draining Center + Bleeding Center is a must to even make it work but then you're rng based and your own input to your own dps becomes less significant. The spec thus becomes rather detached from actual player skill.

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3 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Mercenary/Commando

  • Rocket Out/Propulsion Round is taking Hydraulic Overrides'/Hold the Line’s place on the ability tree as a level 68 mod choice.
  • Rocket Out/Propulsion Round includes the utility Smoke Screen.
    • Smoke Screen: Rocket Out/Propulsion Round generates a Smoke Screen when used keeping you from being pulled or lept to and making you immune to interrupts and ability pushback for 4 seconds. In addition, taking melee or tech damage within 4 seconds of previously using Rocket Out/Propulsion Round, refreshes its cooldown. These effects cannot occur more then once every 40 seconds.
  • Jet Escape/Tenacious Defense no longer reduces the cooldown of Rocket Out/Propulsion Round but instead increases the duration of Hydraulic Overrides/Hold the Line by 4 seconds.
  • Rocket Out's/Propulsion Round’s cooldown reduction from Jet Escape/Tenacious Defense is now the default cooldown for Rocket Out/Propulsion Round.

Innovative Ordnance/Assault Specialist

  • Innovative Particle Accelerator/Ionic Accelerator - Rate limit reduced from 7.5 to 7.0 seconds.

In regards to the Commando changes:

Will you lower the CD on Hold the Line back to "normal" 30 sec? You increased the CD because of Rocket Out.

However, for PVP it is no option to have both mobility abilities because they competing with the main defense ability.

45 sec is really to high and i suppose the original 30 seconds (or 25 seconds with PVP set) was balanced out against the other classes and with them nothing has changed.

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  • The Draining Center/Melting Center ability mod has been redesigned. It now reads: 

    • “Force Rend deals twice its initial damage whenever it consumes a stack of Berserk and heals you for 50% of the damage that it deals.”

The Watchman/Annihilation changes are just passive DPS increases that do nothing to 'smooth out' the rotation and just unnecessarily increase damage. How is having a few of our abilities smoothing it out? It's a very strong spec as it is. The only reason I can see for these changes is to compensate for the masquerading nerf to Melting Centre. Currently, with this utility, we can cast Zen before a filler + Force Melt as soon as it comes off cooldown. Removing this will just elongate the rotation and Centering build up. 

It seems totally unnecessary. The spec is strong and the damage is not OP. The healing slightly is and I wouldn't be surprised to see a straight healing % decrease, but changing Melting Centre and just giving random passive DPS buffs is the opposite of 'smoothing' the rotation.

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5 hours ago, Sikssix said:

For Annihilation/Watchman, most of the stuff seems a bit excessive, fine, but slightly excessive.  There are a few concerns I must address, and this is before even logging into PTS and seeing the changes myself:

 

Annihilation/Watchmen

  • Deadly Saber’s/Overload Saber’s damage has been increased by 3.5%. 

This seems fine.

  1. Needs to be brought to 4% or 5% at most to compensate the loss
  • Devious Wounds/Smoldering Burns now lasts for 6 seconds and increases bleed damage by 5%, up from 3%. 

Quite the jump but I shall see once I get on PTS

  1. Needs to be brought up to 6% at most to compensate the loss
  • Juyo Mastery now additionally increases bleed damage by 1% per stack of Juyo Form.

This with others increasing seems a bit excessive, but I can understand why with Melting Center (can get to that in a bit)

  1. This can be brought up to .5% at most, though more testing is required
  • Pulverize/Mind Sear now resets the cooldown of Dual Saber Throw/Twin Saber Throw and has a 30% chance to trigger, up from 20%.

This I believe is needed, there has been countless times where I rarely use TST/DST due to it not proccing enough. 

  1. The reset of cooldown for DST/TST isn't there, however the 30% is nice now that it procs when it is needed
  • Swift Demise/Acceleration Victory no longer grants stacks of Swift Demise from Annihilate/Merciless Slash. Instead, it increases Vicious Throw/Dispatch damage by 10%. The rest of its effect is unchanged. 

IIRC, Swift Demise basically just add a stack for extra damage for Dispatch/Slash, if this is gone, that is good since it literally served no purpose, however, it would've been nice to modify this to refund one focus/rage but I shall see how this feels on PTS

  1. This remains unchanged, however, the dispatch portion feels a tad useless as you can't do anything until sub 30%.  More testing required

 

  • Damage done by the Blood Fury/Burning Zen ability mod has been increased by 6%. 

This is like the automatic (car reference) for extra DPS

  1. This literally became useless due to being required to use Burning Center with Melting Center.  
  • The Bleeding Center/Burning Center ability mod now generates 4 rage/Focus whenever Berserk/Zen is activated. 

This I believe this isn't needed since most Watchman/Annihilation players with experience would opt between the other two options

  1. This is now required to be used, while the centering increase is nice, the description for this is miscommunicated, allow me to explain:

Burning Center:  Activating Zen immediately builds 4 Focus and critically hitting with a periodic burn builds 2 centering, even during Zen.  This effect cannot occur more than one every two seconds.

  1. This needs to be brought up to 4 centering to compensate the Zen and Force Melt DPS, otherwise it's all for naught.  
  • Force Fracture damage has been increased by 10%.

Correction:  Force Fracture is still useless when replacing Cauterize, instead, replace Slash with this, and have it used with Spiteful Saber tactical 

  1. Please read what was stated on my correction
  • The Juyo Rend/Juyo Melt ability mod has been redesigned. It no longer increases the damage of Force Rend per stack of Juyo Form. Instead, it causes Force Rend to immediately grant 6 stacks of Juyo Form and build 10 Fury/Centering stacks. 

For AOE spec I can see this being useful, as for the building centering/fury stacks, this should have stayed on Draining Center/ Melting Center, by the time we use Force Melt/Rend, we get to six stacks right away, thus with this ability being changed, we now must redo our rotation and won't benefit us ultimately.  

Example:  Watchman spec; Force leap, Zealous Strike, Merciless Slash, both of those applies debuffs on the enemy that we need to use for extra damage onto the enemy before our bigger DoTs go on.  Now I can see this as:  Force Leap, Force Melt/Rend, Cauterize, Merciless Slash, Zealous Strike.   I will test this once I get on, however I have no high hopes for it.

  1. This is now useless, even with the 10 centering, the most I have sustained was 26K DPS with the original rotation.  You can obtain the 6 Juyo stacks by the time you get to this, and even with the alternative rotation, it's worse.
  • The Draining Center/Melting Center ability mod has been redesigned. It now reads: 

“Force Rend deals twice its initial damage whenever it consumes a stack of Berserk and heals you for 50% of the damage that it deals.”

This has just screwed us completely out of our DPS.  Because of this change and with Juyo Rend/Melt will only be useful for the extra heals, which is a joke at that point.  This literally screws our rotation over and can't benefit using Zen as often as required, this will not smooth out the rotation what so ever and will have to burn extra GCDs just to get Zen popped for Force Rend/Melt to do it's job.  

  1. I can't stress this enough.  This is still needed, but there are some depicts I will list:

Melting Center:  Force Melt deals four times it's initial damage whenever it consumes a stack of Zen and heals you for 100% of the damage that it deals

  1. This is the second time I have to correct something here that was miscommunicated, of how long this game has been-- You know what, I am getting side tracked.  It would be ideal to keep the 10 centering stacks even when Zen is popped on this ability.  That way players can utilize using Force Fracture and Burning Zen.  

 

Note:  I have not jumped onto PTS as of the time of writing this, and will update once I get online.  After reading all of these changes and with out jumping into PTS yet, I can easily say this is very deceiving.  While yes, the extra burn damage from most of the bullet points, other ones I am fearing the most are bullet points 9 and 10.  I will be parsing a lot to see how bad this harms the spec.

 

 

Alright so after playing with this for just nearly an hour I can easily tell you now, this is a huge mistake, I managed to get to 29K DPS when using Melting Center with Burning Center, but it is really tight and not the good kind.  I am usually one to two GCD when Force Melt is available before I pop Zen.  That is not good and it feels there is a lot of wasted opportunity there.  If Melting Center was reverted back to what the live server has now, this would help a bit instead of hindering as what has been done here.  With this being said:  I will place my updated input (which I know is useless to the devs here) in a different color and bullet point just to keep organize.

 

With that being said, on my last new note, the fact I had to recommunicate the abilities compared to what was said here on the forums is very concerning.  I only spent barely an hour to see what the numbers and what changes were needed on the rotation to obtain higher DPS.  On the live server the highest I have parsed was 34K flat.  32-33K average.  On the PTS,  with Melting Center and Burning Center combo, which is now required, I have obtained the highest of 28,991 DPS.  Even though the forum and post here made it seem like it was a buff for this spec, that was a lie and this clearly shows they will deceive you with miscommunication and misinforming.  I should be surprised and shocked the developers are not communicating and obtaining feedback to note and trying to not break anything, however, with the more recent events of going on I have to say I am not shocked or surprised because this is what they do.  I am not here to bash on their work, they are at least trying.  With all this being said I do want to make this clear, and by clear meaning hopefully be read and heard, but expecting to this to be tossed in the garbage:

 

Keep the Annihilation and Watchman spec as it is from 7.1.1.  The only changes should be done is slight heal reduction and replace Slash with Force Fracture as that ability will be more useful with cauterize, force melt, and overload saber, while letting Force Fracture benefit off the Spiteful Saber tactical.  This post may sound like our spec needs more DPS overall and be OP, sure why not?  This is just me stating that slight change will make the class feel more fun and engaging instead of the 7.2 booty.  

Edited by Sikssix
Correcting self on Force Fracture
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3 minutes ago, Elvarania said:
  • The Draining Center/Melting Center ability mod has been redesigned. It now reads: 

    • “Force Rend deals twice its initial damage whenever it consumes a stack of Berserk and heals you for 50% of the damage that it deals.”

The Watchman/Annihilation changes are just passive DPS increases that do nothing to 'smooth out' the rotation and just unnecessarily increase damage. How is having a few of our abilities smoothing it out? It's a very strong spec as it is. The only reason I can see for these changes is to compensate for the masquerading nerf to Melting Centre. Currently, with this utility, we can cast Zen before a filler + Force Melt as soon as it comes off cooldown. Removing this will just elongate the rotation and Centering build up. 

It seems totally unnecessary. The spec is strong and the damage is not OP. The healing slightly is and I wouldn't be surprised to see a straight healing % decrease, but changing Melting Centre and just giving random passive DPS buffs is the opposite of 'smoothing' the rotation.

I just made an updated post about this, I hope that covers what you just stated too.  I agree, after playing with it for barely an hour, it's not smooth in the slightest, it's insanely rough and you actually lose a good chunk of DPS all around.

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8 minutes ago, Sikssix said:

Alright so after playing with this for just nearly an hour I can easily tell you now, this is a huge mistake, I managed to get to 29K DPS when using Melting Center with Burning Center, but it is really tight and not the good kind

It also does not yet have the Force rend dmg nerf patched in. It still does 4x dmg while it should only be doing 2x, so best parse so far was some 30.5k with a lot of crit luck to get FR with Draining Center off in time (adjusted for the coming nerf) which is like 3-4k behind Fury.

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Just now, Aethyriel said:

It also does not yet have the Force rend dmg nerf patched in. It still does 4x dmg while it should only be doing 2x, so best parse so far was some 30.5k with a lot of crit luck to get FR with Draining Center off in time (adjusted for the coming nerf) which is like 3-4k behind Fury.

I also stated there is a lot of miscommunication between here and on PTS, so there is a lot of confusion going on already.  I am trying to clear up what is being said to what is on the PTS currently.  This nerf is a bit extreme and to be honest, this spec shouldn't be touched minus reduced healing and what I said about Force Fracture in my previous posts.  

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Just now, Sikssix said:

This nerf is a bit extreme and to be honest, this spec shouldn't be touched minus reduced healing and what I said about Force Fracture in my previous posts.  

Anni should simply not be doing 12k HPS. It is stupid for any DPS spec to do that while doing dmg. Everyone in the entire worlds sees that healing is the problem with Anni except for the devs who think they'll just nerf the dmg instead of the healing. But the DPS was perfectly fine and the playstyle was perfectly fine as well. The Healing was OP and it remains OP after the patch. berserk should simply not heal the group and thirst for Rage should be reworked to remove the healing and provide some other utility. Anni should not be your solution to a healing problem. No other class provides healing for the group this consistently and to itself on top of that. we should have about the same self-healing as a Hatred Assassin and that's it. everything else is just stupidly balanced.

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Just now, Aethyriel said:

Anni should simply not be doing 12k HPS. It is stupid for any DPS spec to do that while doing dmg. Everyone in the entire worlds sees that healing is the problem with Anni except for the devs who think they'll just nerf the dmg instead of the healing. But the DPS was perfectly fine and the playstyle was perfectly fine as well. The Healing was OP and it remains OP after the patch. berserk should simply not heal the group and thirst for Rage should be reworked to remove the healing and provide some other utility. Anni should not be your solution to a healing problem. No other class provides healing for the group this consistently and to itself on top of that. we should have about the same self-healing as a Hatred Assassin and that's it. everything else is just stupidly balanced.

I agree on the healing portion, it's not needed, that is the healer's job to heal and not a DPS' job.  The healer is a tough class to play alone as is.  They don't need a boost from DPS at all, they (healer) should be buffed a bit, even if the healer isn't the greatest.  As for the self healing I can agree to an extent, the watchman heals is just too much.  DPS is fine other than-- I already said it twice lol.

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1 hour ago, Sikssix said:

With that being said, on my last new note, the fact I had to recommunicate the abilities compared to what was said here on the forums is very concerning.  I only spent barely an hour to see what the numbers and what changes were needed on the rotation to obtain higher DPS.  On the live server the highest I have parsed was 34K flat.  32-33K average.  On the PTS,  with Melting Center and Burning Center combo, which is now required, I have obtained the highest of 28,991 DPS.  Even though the forum and post here made it seem like it was a buff for this spec, that was a lie and this clearly shows they will deceive you with miscommunication and misinforming.  I should be surprised and shocked the developers are not communicating and obtaining feedback to note and trying to not break anything, however, with the more recent events of going on I have to say I am not shocked or surprised because this is what they do.  I am not here to bash on their work, they are at least trying.  With all this being said I do want to make this clear, and by clear meaning hopefully be read and heard, but expecting to this to be tossed in the garbage:

You might be doing something wrong. I've seen dummy parses on pts from anni that are doing 34k dps already and 11.7k hps, compared to 34k dps on live and 7.4k hps (top parse). You don't need battering assault anymore so the "smoother rotation" part i guess, but doing even more heals than before... lol. It seems the balance team want to get rid of healers

Edited by xxSHOONYxx
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34 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

You might be doing something wrong. I've seen dummy parses on pts from anni that are doing 34k dps already and 11.7k hps, compared to 34k dps on live and 7.4k hps (top parse). You don't need battering assault anymore so the "smoother rotation" part i guess, but doing even more heals than before... lol. It seems the balance team want to get rid of healers

Except it really isn't. Melting Center wasn't properly updated. It is still doing 4x and not 2x. The tool tip matches what is above but the ability isn't acting the same. If it is fixed, then it will be 1-2k dps loss.

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43 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

You might be doing something wrong. I've seen dummy parses on pts from anni that are doing 34k dps already and 11.7k hps, compared to 34k dps on live and 7.4k hps (top parse). You don't need battering assault anymore so the "smoother rotation" part i guess, but doing even more heals than before... lol. It seems the balance team want to get rid of healers

Curious.  Battering Assault is Zealous if I recall, the thing is focus is hard to come by from time to time and I see myself using it, then again there are times I am overusing Slash.  As I stated, I need to do more testing and plan to do so hopefully this weekend.  This was written with first impressions and what not.  Going to transfer some stuff and get back at it tonight.  As for the last statement, it's like they are trying to go the GW2 ordeal as you said.  

 

Could you share where you are seeing this?

Edited by Sikssix
Requesting data and parse numbers
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2 hours ago, Sikssix said:

I just made an updated post about this, I hope that covers what you just stated too.  I agree, after playing with it for barely an hour, it's not smooth in the slightest, it's insanely rough and you actually lose a good chunk of DPS all around.

What exactly would change the rotation here? Even choosing burning center in skill tree I'm hitting 31-32k on a 6.5m dummy. The rotations/priorities are already smooth as it is. Are we talking about removing the x4 forcemelt damage after zen? That would be a nerf, then the extra burn damage would be totally nessesarry.

 

But the class is super smooth as it is. You never have to use your basic attack, your always good on focus if you properly use the class.

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