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Russlem

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  1. Well that's an extremely frustrating answer. "Play a spec you have no interest at all in playing because what you want to play was designed too poorly for this particular patch". This is why I stopped playing MMOs. It's not about having fun, never about having fun. It's about chasing the meta. Playing "optimal-only" regardless of your actual enjoyment of it. That's not a criticism of you, but the brainwashed mindset your post represents and one I shared for years. Paying money to have a developer move the goalposts on you. Well thanks for the feedback guys, but I'm jumping off the train at this stop. I promised myself I would never let a developer choose my class for me again and I'm certainly not going to make an exception for Bioware. If they want my money, they can stop with the bait-and-switch. Enticing me to play with fun, engaging classes and then forcing me to play something that isn't if I want to continue to be successful.
  2. Hey guys, I'm playing some SWTOR hoping to find a new MMO to switch to. I'm currently playing Rage Juggernaut and have leveled to level 45 so far. I'm following the DPS rotation guide mirror for Focus Guardian on Dulfy since I always try to play at the top of the capabilities of my class and do my research. I just attempted the Flashpoint False Emperor and ran into a design oversight so infuriating I almost unsubbed instantly. The boss HK-47 had a passive aura that would knockback, stun and punish every time I used any form of charge. Including Obliterate which is a non-negotiable, high priority in my DPS rotation. In other words I was being penalized not for any gameplay shortcoming I actually possess... but because I had the audacity to fight this particular boss as a Rage spec. How common are these horrific design oversights? Is this something I can expect from multiple boss encounters? Main rotational abilities being excluded because of arbitrary boss mechanics? Or is this some unbalanced old FP they never fixed and I should put it behind me and just move forward?
  3. Excellent, this was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
  4. Hey guys, I'm a former hardcore raider in WoW (spreadsheets, simcraft, hours of theorycrafting per week, the works). My job just eased up and I'm looking to get into SWTOR and was interested in the class balance or potential lack thereof. One of the things you pick up on when parsing is the theoretical DPS vs. the actual DPS. In WoW it was the divide in the community between Raidbots (real, aggregated parses) and Simulationcraft (theoretical modeling). This game has a much, much smaller community though and I wanted to get some opinions on class balance in PvE content from people who are deep into this stuff. So just looking around the forums I see multiple threads complaining about poor class balance. Several specs and some advanced classes are deemed "sub-optimal" in all specs (Operative/Scoundrel for example). However according to the DPS ranking calculation found here, theoretical class balance excluding the top and bottom outliers are within 5%. That's outstanding class parity. Literally industry leading, if true. How much of this translates in game? I'm unfamiliar with aggregated parsing trackers for this game, but if the counter-argument to this class balance is to link such an aggregated parsing website (which I would agree is a more accurate measure of class balance), how much of that is due to selection bias? I.e. players who play at a higher skill ceiling seeking a competitive advantage and navigating to a theoretically better class making the class imbalance seem more severe than it really is. I look forward to your responses.
  5. Thanks for the link. Really let's me see where the stat allocations are going. So if the mitigation stats are taking a backseat to endurance healers must be able to efficiently and quickly cap your health irrespective of boss damage output. That answers a friend of mine's question as well.
  6. Hey all. To start with, I'd prefer responses from people with legitimate endgame PvE tanking experience. My question goes to the importance of endurance. I've read several tanking guides and endurance is looked upon as a primary stat and not weighed against the "secondary" stats in terms of value and import. However, with the new augment kits its going to become widespread that you'll have to choose between endurance or a secondary tanking stat. So here's my question: How important is endurance? My Vanguard is going to be hitting level cap in the next few days and I have choices between Rakata/Columi pieces with high endurance pools but horrible defensive stats or 47-49 purples with lower endurance pools but superb defensive stats. Then there's how to choose your augments. So since endurance doesn't actually increase your survivability, only the length of time you have before you die without a healer, how much health do you need to survive PvE content. This also goes to the value of "Soldier's Endurance" from the Assault tree (giving only 69 END for 3 talent points at 2300 endurance) which in my experience in other MMOs should have an extremely low value of stats and would be better spent on utility like Defensive Measures and Neural Overload. I'm interested in everyone's thoughts and comments.
  7. Flameburst is used to apply debuffs and buff yourself mainly, but it should never hit weaker than your Rapid Shots or Juggernaut's Assault. Sundering Assault maybe, but that has a cooldown. For one, the damage and scaling on it is better, for two its a tech attack so it bypasses the hit table completely, for three its elemental damage so it bypasses the physical damage table as well. Your priority rotation should be Rocket Punch -> Rail Shot -> Explosive Dart -> Flame Burst. You then use Immolate to keep your heat low and use Flamethrower when you are certain it won't take your below your heat threshold preferably with Thermal Sensor Override. Managing heat can be a problem but my usual pattern is Ability -> Rapid Shots repeat and if I'm at a heat level where one more tick would cap my heat I delay the Rapid Shots 1 GCD and use the next ability in the priority. You can get some real spike DPS using Immolate, Thermal Sensor Override and the Heat Venting from shielding. But you should never do less damage than an Immortal Juggernaut. They had the lowest DPS in the game by 100 DPS in 1.2, and their damage was nerfed by a flat 6% plus Backhand and Crushing Blow were nerfed badly as well. Powertechs saw some minor nerfs to their damage but nothing that should have brought them down below Juggernaut.
  8. So to be clear, the general way you get these enhancements or mods is by buying whole pieces of equipment outside of your necessary gear just to strip out the enhancements/mods? Or if you're a cybertech/artificer you still have to do this but there's a small chance reverse engineering will teach you the pattern?
  9. There are 2 brackets: 1-49 and 50. In the 1-49 bracket all players are bolstered to level 50 which means their stats and gear is scaled according to their level. The big advantage to being higher level is having more talents/skills, but your stats are the same.
  10. A friend of mine and myself are coming back for the 1.3 patch with the new dungeon finder. There are a lot of guides out there on what stats to prioritize and what those breakpoints are for PvE/PvP but the one thing I cannot find anywhere is an explanation of HOW you get these pieces. For example, the Rakata tanking gear for Powertech has a lot of accuracy which is useless. The guides say to switch to Shield/Absorb/Defense mods and enhancements, but there are very few on the auction house and the ones on Rakata level are prohibitively expensive. How does a Raid level tank maintain the appropriate Mods/Enhancements? Do they really have to spend raid tokens on pieces of gear outside their tier to strip out the mods and enhancements? Is there some raid level vendor I'm missing? TORHead isn't giving me any information, nor are any of the tanking guide I've read. Can someone please explain how raiders keep their gear with the appropriate stats?
  11. I skimmed your post and quickly noticed the numerous straw mans and red herrings in your post. Like I said, this isn't a discussion for you, its about winning an argument. Move along people nothing to see here.
  12. I've addressed both of these questions already. If you don't wish to read my posts that's not my problem, but I'll resummarize here: Your first question is answered simply by they give them to whoever the dungeon finder needs most currently, exactly like the WoW system. That will never, ever be DPS which is why people assume DPS aren't in the equation. Offering incentives to tanks and healers in WoW vastly reduced queue times for DPS and I already provided an example of a realistic situation in which the benefit to the DPS for incentivizing tanks/healers outweighed the actual benefit to the tanks/healers. Read my post. To your second question I already answered: tanks and healers have more responsibility in a group. They're just as complicated rotationally, but have more complexity because they require better reaction times than DPS does. More responsibility and complexity means these classes are less attractive than classes with no/little responsibility and less complexity. Read my post. I do, however, find it very telling you decided to push the hardest and last released dungeon in the final tier of content 2 years into WotLK to disprove my assertion that I tanked heroics on my Ret Paladin. Didn't feel confident enough calling BS on Gundrak or Halls of Lightning? Of course you didn't, you know those dungeons were an absolute joke and could easily be tanked by a well geared DPS with a 2 hander. That's why you misleadingly and dishonestly pushed the one dungeon that was there for a small fraction of the total expansion because this conversation isn't actually about helping the game for you. Its about winning an argument.
  13. Yes its fair to the DPS. Let's assume tanks and healers get equal queue times and can make 10 comms an hour. A DPS with a longer queue time only manages 3 comms an hour (reasonable considering 30-40 minute wait times). Incentivizing tanks and healers increases their comms an hour to 11, maybe 12 while the DPS go up to about 6 or 7 due to substantially shorter queues. The benefit is clearly in favor of the DPS just because they get in to see more content both per capita and net. If you're worried about everyone switching from DPS to tank/healer your fears are utterly unfounded as this has never happened in any MMO that implemented incentives for rolling tank/healer. You say you grinded in WoW for 4 years. The dungeon finder wasn't even up in Burning Crusade (about 4 years ago) nor did DPS have the means to AoE down groups efficiently until the revisions before the release of WotLK . It wasn't until Dec. 2009 that the dungeon finder was added a YEAR into WotLK. So you could not have had the issues you claim to have had before Dec. 2009. So my question to you as a tank is: seriously? You had trouble tanking WotLK heroics? I tanked them as a DPS ret paladin using a 2 hander, usually without a healer. I mean early Cataclysm I can see some trouble with dumb people, but that got worked out within 3 months especially with the initial blanket nerfs to AoE that weren't fixed until 6 months into Cata. I seriously question if these issues you claim to have had are real or if you just never got enough gear to handle the content.
  14. Guy had a bad group with a mouthy little infant. Welcome to the internet. If some a pissy little nobody you've never met before and likely won't see again gets your dander up you aren't ready to tank seriously when you have 19 other people you know and work with depending on your performance. Juggernaut/Guardian DPS classes who continually post 2000 DPS parses still have to deal with people giving them crap for having the audacity to show up in Vengeance/Vigilance specs to DPS in a dungeon group. People who play MMO's are uninformed, ignorant, arrogant and mouthy. Its a part of playing a video game on the internet. Its why progression guilds have applications and interviews, they don't just invite anybody. When I get someone like this I use my votekick option, its unlikely the other 2 members of your group appreciate the pissant's incessant negativity and refusal to perform anymore than you do. Aside from the fact that as a tank you hold all the power. What's easier to replace? A healer with a bad attitude or a tank of any type? Leverage your position, you call the shots unless they want to sit in queue for another 10 minutes.
  15. The incentives system in WoW worked on bringing DPS queue times down from 45 minutes to 22. The lack of tanks and healers isn't that tanks and healers aren't engaging, because they are. A tank or healer's rotation is usually just as complicated as a DPS rotation with the added bonus of having to react to a changing environment. Moving out of the fire while maintaining your rotation as a DPS might seem difficult, but try repositioning a boss without killing your other raid mates while still needing to stay out of the fire, or prepping a heal to go off and weighing incoming damage against their odds of survival if you have to move while casting. Healers and tanks are just as engaging as DPS but their added complexity and importance give them more responsibility. Having more responsibility is intimidating for players, especially new players. I've tanked in FFXI, WoW, Rift, WAR, and other MMO's I'm just not thinking about right now. I've MT'd just about any raid on hardmodes across all these games and when I'm hitting level cap on a new tanking class I'm not familiar with, I'm still abrasive walking into my first 10 tanking dungeons because I've lost the control that comes with experience and familiarity. This doesn't happen with DPS because I know that if I mess up I'll likely deal bad damage or worst case scenario get myself killed. If I mess up on a tank, I just killed everyone. In a PvE raid setting healers can rely on other healers to support them so they have more wiggle room, but being the MT is the most stressful job in the raid because no one can pick up your slack. If you mess up it costs everyone. Healing is also easier in a PvE dungeon because you aren't expected to lead. The tank is the de facto leader in just about any PvE dungeon which is also intimidating. That's why DPS are super common, healers are uncommon and tanks are rare. Its a measure of the responsibility hoisted on these archetypes their class mechanics notwithstanding. If you demand a game where no class has more responsibility than any other class I don't think I want to play that game because its likely so arbitrarily easy or punishingly difficult that it couldn't succeed anyway.
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