How Madness/Balance are ruining the balance of PVP Right now and the current State of Class Balancing

[SentinalMasterWW]

I want to make this post because IMO I feel that this spec right now sucks any fun and skill there is to be had out of PVP right now. This is yet another post telling bioware to nerf this class in the next update. This spec has been broken for over a year now, has only gotten buffs and destroys the balancing of PVP matches. Look at any tier list right now for PVP and you'll usually see madness at the top of the list. If you see a sage or a sorc in PVP nowadays 97% chance if their not a healer their running madness and balance. 

I want to add that I've had a lot of time to play with madness, and I refuse to main it or meta specs. I don't want to play the meta specs because they are clearly broken and take any fun or skill out of PVP. I've mained Deception in Arena's and have bullied the other team into submission in numerous matches, same goes for lethality. 

Madness is basically a spec with zero flaws, It has great mobility, great DMG, Great self healing, Bubble, CC's, Defensives, and can kite amazingly. 

Madness also has the most obnoxious OP ability in PVP, Deathbrand. Deathbrand slows the target and can reapply itself and is STILL TO THIS DAY bugged where it can apply itself AFTER DEFEAT. Why has bioware not fixed this bug? An ability like Deathbrand should not exist for a ranged spec like madness. Merc's Net ability is the closes thing I can think of that is similar to deathbrand, but net can only be used like every 1.25 min or so, but its more so meant to help Merc's get away from melee classes or snare classes that run around like a kindergartener at Recess. Not to mention Net only last like 9 Secs or so. 

Yeah they can't DOT Spread with Deathbrand but its so easy just to tab swap targets and apply DOT's. 

Force Leach is the other big issue, I believe when under Recklessness or Force speed it can heal like 5-10% of the players health, and when under polarity shift makes it so the caster is immune to interrupts. And Even if you do interupt them it only prevents them from casting it for like 4 secs. When I main madness I just walk backwards while using Deathbrand and Force Leach, literally that is all you have to do to play madness, Apply DOT's, Deathbrand, than walk backwards while they try and chase you while you cast force leach.

Lightning is far more engaging, It's fun, Not Overpowered, and requires a bit more thinking on positioning. Too bad bioware nerfed this spec for some reason, It wasn't Overpowered at all, like yeah I disliked some of the burst lightning had at the start of 7.0, but TBH after awhile lightning was in a good spot it wasn't OP but wasn't terrible either. I think one of the reasons we see so many Madness sorcs is because Lightning got shafted hard by the nerf, so everyone moved over to madness. Madness also just does everything better than lightning in terms of DPS and survivability.  

Instead of Buffing these Overpowered Specs Bioware how about you buff the ones that are struggling? Like Snipers/Slingers and Mercs/Commandos? Gunnery has been dogwater for a long time how about you buff it to make it more viable, Marksman is basically hitting your enemy with silly bullets as that spec does no DMG and has no Recovery at all. 

Stop dumbing down the classes in this game by pruning everything or making them all hit like a rubber chicken. Make PVP actually fun again by buffing the struggling classes, and bringing the OP ones down to a more reasonable level.

[krackcommando]

2 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Madness also has the most obnoxious OP ability in PVP, Deathbrand. Deathbrand slows the target and can reapply itself and is STILL TO THIS DAY bugged where it can apply itself AFTER DEFEAT. Why has bioware not fixed this bug?

this is quite obnoxious, and far better players than you (or me) have complained about it. to be fair, it has always applied to one of the lethality dots as well. but the slow attached to the madness dot is truly obnoxious (by itself, never-mind persisting through death).

different issue, but I cry inside when the sorc dots me and I los but spamming my heal isn't even enough to outheal the dot. incendiary and serrated don't dot that hard. 🤨 (not sure it's op just...I cry while cursing as it happens 😄).

[Glower]

4 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Gunnery has been dogwater for a long time how about you buff it to make it more viable

I may agree with madness to the point, but only because of bugged tactical and somewhat overpowered self-heals. But this one? Are you kidding right? You could just say in the title: hey guys, i am a merc player that can beat almost everyone but mad sorcs, please nerf them.

And adding poor marksman spec after the mercs does not make your claim more justified. And i dont even play on my arseanl merc that often to say this.

[SentinalMasterWW]

2 hours ago, Glower said:

I may agree with madness to the point, but only because of bugged tactical and somewhat overpowered self-heals. But this one? Are you kidding right? You could just say in the title: hey guys, i am a merc player that can beat almost everyone but mad sorcs, please nerf them.

And adding poor marksman spec after the mercs does not make your claim more justified. And i dont even play on my arseanl merc that often to say this.

I play every spec in this game, There are some I enjoy more than others, I enjoy Arsenal/Gunnery for the simplicity, Can I Dumpster on Madness Sorcs with Gunnery? Yes, Have I done so in matches? Yes. 

Marksman was brought up because it has received zero buffs from bioware since 7.0 dropped, and is struggling to find its place in either PVP or PVE, which is a far cry from 6.0 where Marksman could hit like a truck. 

The point isn't "My spec bad, bioware please nerf OP Spec". The point is that Bioware is dumping resources into pointless UI Updates, and other weird PVP Reworks, When they should be fixing the current class balancing. Why do Healers have better survivability than tanks and can actually tank more than a dedicated tank spec? Why is it better to run skank tank DPS than actually try and play the role of a tank? Why are Jugs and Commandos the most immobile thing in this game? Who thought it was a good idea to give Snipers/Slingers no recovery whatsoever? 

 

[Glower]

Just now, SentinalMasterWW said:

When they should be fixing the current class balancing

They dont care. I repeat - they dont care. It is just some worker, maybe even 2-3 of them, like a whole team, "working" at PvP and the general class balance only to get his salary at the end of the month.

 

Just now, SentinalMasterWW said:

Why do Healers have better survivability than tanks and can actually tank more than a dedicated tank spec? Why is it better to run skank tank DPS than actually try and play the role of a tank? Why are Jugs and Commandos the most immobile thing in this game? Who thought it was a good idea to give Snipers/Slingers no recovery whatsoever? 

Oh man...

-Healers are no better compared to tanks if not guarded and if tank will decide to kite like an adequate healer will do in the same case (people always forget it somehow, like meh that tank melted too fast without heals... well no sh*t if he was focused with 4 or more semi-competent players in the middle of nowhere)... I agree that skilled dedicated healers can do cool things from time to time, but hey, how many dedicated metigation tanks you know? Yeah.

-Juggs are not immobile at all with all these hops and slides... 1 jump, 1 friendly jump, one slide, one immunity if specced into it, one root breaker/speed buff! Like what else do you need? Phase walk?

-And mercs are so mobile you cant even imagine (as i see that you never tried to make them mobile)  especially if Rocket Out will proc third time right after the second while bieng attacked. 🚀

[krackcommando]

12 hours ago, Glower said:

-And mercs are so mobile you cant even imagine (as i see that you never tried to make them mobile)  especially if Rocket Out will proc third time right after the second while bieng attacked. 🚀

uh… mercs don’t even have rocket out unless they give up reflect, which is their only recourse to focus fire. if you’re giving up ip reflect for rocket out, you’re just goofing off in WZs and are likely global bait in arenas. i haven’t tried all specs simce coming back, but merc feels like the slowest spec in the game by a large margin and certainly the slowest it has been since the very early years of the game. 

[SentinalMasterWW]

3 hours ago, krackcommando said:

uh… mercs don’t even have rocket out unless they give up reflect, which is their only recourse to focus fire. if you’re giving up ip reflect for rocket out, you’re just goofing off in WZs and are likely global bait in arenas. i haven’t tried all specs simce coming back, but merc feels like the slowest spec in the game by a large margin and certainly the slowest it has been since the very early years of the game. 

Basically this, 95% of players who main merc in PVP are not going to give up reflect for rocket out, Same goes for taking Cryo gernade. Reflect gives the spec needed survivability in the spec. Sure rocket out makes you immune to leaps or pulls, but a smart melee player knows how to counteract this, not to mention rocket out from ranged is pointless since all a ranged spec has to do is get within range to down you making the leap or pull pointless against range. 

Hold the line would be actually useful if it was like VG's where it was 10 secs and gave the better speed boost and had the shorter cooldown.

[Glower]

18 hours ago, krackcommando said:

uh… mercs don’t even have rocket out unless they give up reflect, which is their only recourse to focus fire. if you’re giving up

 

14 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Basically this, 95% of players who main merc in PVP are not going to give up reflect for rocket out

Well, idk what to say... welcome to 7.0 skill tree i suppose? Thanks to Bioware's infinite wisdom you cant have good ol' toolset everyting at once on most classes, but saying that mercs and juggs is the least mobile classes vs other is a manipulation at this point, because other classes also need to sacrifice something to get enhanced mobility.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Glower

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, Glower said:

Well, idk what to say... welcome to 7.0 skill tree i suppose? Thanks to Bioware's infinite wisdom you cant have good ol' toolset everyting at once on most classes, but saying that mercs and juggs is the least mobile classes vs other is a manipulation at this point, because other classes also need to sacrifice something to get enhanced mobility.

I'm actually a fan of the pruning and specifically of pruning mobility, but they seem to have left it on the worst offenders: crazy mara pred, op rolls on short cd, PT hyper hydrolics. and then they did this thing where they jacked up rocket out but made it an impossible choice to take into arenas. like...thanks. if done unilaterally, I think it would have been very healthy. The only saving grace is I think you can still tweak your tree before matches start (I've only done this in arenas, but I assume you could do it on a WZ by WZ basis too?).

no chance chasing that mara or sin who I see going across the map to htf. not with this slow dot on me and not even a base level rocket out. eesh. gg.

Edited March 17, 2023 by krackcommando

[DougTheNoob]

Madness isnt really that op.Lethality op is waaaaay worse imho. They just need to lose either some of their insane self heals or some of their mobility,everything else is fine. Ah,ofc the deathbrand bug needs to be fixed,but bioware isnt known to fix bugs in their games,so I'm not optimistic.

About mercs,its just stupid that u need to choose between ur only answer against being globaled (reflect) or ur best mobility skill. If merc's hydraulic was the same as PT's hydraulic,I wouldnt mind it,but no,its the worst version of that with kinda high cd and short effect. The best solution would be making us choosing between hydraulic(same PT'S hydraulic) and the new rocket out,making reflect a regular skill. Devs clearly never played arenas as a merc if they think its ok to make us choose between the 2 skills mentioned b4.

[-Ashton-]

The problem is the tools available. It’s encouraging single minded players to re-roll and re-spec.

Currently madness can keep any melee at arms length with minimal effort and it can counter every range class with it’s self heals.

a weak player, who plays madness can compete with a high skilled player of most specs.

most who currently play madness do it for its ability to rely on itself. So don’t expect any support, any heals or peels. Not like old school specs.

They’re only interested in self glory. That’s why they play the class. 

every era has had its fotm. Smash, Pyro, Arsenal, concealment and now madness.

but none of these previous fotm have had so many tools, it’s outrageous 

 

[meddani]

lol @ merc being bad, that's a good one.

 

[krackcommando]

On 3/17/2023 at 5:22 PM, DougTheNoob said:

About mercs,its just stupid that u need to choose between ur only answer against being globaled (reflect) or ur best mobility skill. If merc's hydraulic was the same as PT's hydraulic,I wouldnt mind it,but no,its the worst version of that with kinda high cd and short effect. The best solution would be making us choosing between hydraulic(same PT'S hydraulic) and the new rocket out,making reflect a regular skill. Devs clearly never played arenas as a merc if they think its ok to make us choose between the 2 skills mentioned b4.

I don't think anyone should be moving around the way PTs can. like prum said with hyperspeed predation: regular predation is fine. regular HO (maybe a lower cd) is fine. I agree that one or the other (HO vs. RO) would've been a good pruning decision. it addresses a problem with hyper-mobility in WZs.

 

[DougTheNoob]

2 hours ago, krackcommando said:

I don't think anyone should be moving around the way PTs can. like prum said with hyperspeed predation: regular predation is fine. regular HO (maybe a lower cd) is fine. I agree that one or the other (HO vs. RO) would've been a good pruning decision. it addresses a problem with hyper-mobility in WZs.

 

I tend to agree .My point was that current merc's hydro doesnt fix its mobility problem at all,and by making mercs choosing between rocket out and reflect,they just making mercs easy targets in arenas. Good mercs will manage to last longer,specially against weak players,but they problem will still be there.

[MercMara]

I couldn't agree more. I play everything in PvP, currently Madness, AP PT and Rage Jug are the over tuned "meta specs".

 

Madness alone is insanely over tuned. Normal Sorcs heals, heals from DoTs, Bubble heals, Force Leach heal, Deathbrand heal. More damage reduction than heavy armored classes.  10% defensive chance. Mobility is insane. Phase Walk. Lowered CD on a stun that drops your DPS by 25%. hard bubble. Lets not forget the insane burst.  The ability to end all three dots at once is very over powered. I main I/O and my DPS can barely if at all beat out the self heals, DR and defensive chance. It's ridiculous. 

[Darkestmonty]

On 3/15/2023 at 11:44 PM, krackcommando said:

this is quite obnoxious, and far better players than you (or me) have complained about it. to be fair, it has always applied to one of the lethality dots as well. but the slow attached to the madness dot is truly obnoxious (by itself, never-mind persisting through death).

different issue, but I cry inside when the sorc dots me and I los but spamming my heal isn't even enough to outheal the dot. incendiary and serrated don't dot that hard. 🤨 (not sure it's op just...I cry while cursing as it happens 😄).

so many times in Hypergates I have spawned with that debuff and haven't been able to run through the gate before it locks because of being slowed.