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Valorn

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  1. Balancing is not a zero-sum game. Adding consistency to VG dps and control is orthogonal to survivability. They can address both. We shouldn’t be accepting of changes that only address the most pressing issue with the class. While true, DCDs are the more important thing, but longer range abilities means more consistent damage for the dps disciplines, which makes coordination easier. However, I think this is addressed mostly by making the utility that extends ranges when explosive fuel is used to include rail shot. Seems like an oversight that it wasn’t included and its lack makes the utility mostly useless. I would prefer, however, rail shot and shatter slug to be 30m, and to increase the range of the mortar strike. Also the utility that extends ranges should be extending by +5m, not +2m. Give some real options there. For folks who have played VG/PT a long time (since release for me), one of the things thst felt unique and very fun about the class was its ranges abilities. When I came back to the game and saw them gone I was very disaplointed. It was one of the aspects of this game that I really enjoyed thst I couldn’t get in any other game. The fun factor was diminished. From a practical standpoint, the range allows two things 1) for you to better coordinate damage against priority targets, almost as good as a ranged dps, and getting out of melee for short periods of time was not nearly as impactful to a VG/PT as it was a Jugg or assassin. 2) it allowed you to stay in guard range and still do respectable damage/control. As a ranged tank you dont need to choose between engaging a target and protecting a friendly. You can, while retaining respectable efficacy, do both. That is a differentiator. These were why I really liked the range on thr class, and why I miss it.
  2. Balancing is not a zero-sum game. Adding consistency to VG dps and control is orthogonal to survivability. They can address both. We shouldn’t be accepting of changes that only address the most pressing issue with the class. While true, DCDs are the more important thing, but longer range abilities means more consistent damage for the dps disciplines, which makes coordination easier. However, I think this is addressed mostly by making the utility that extends ranges when explosive fuel is used to include rail shot. Seems like an oversight that it wasn’t included and its lack makes the utility mostly useless. I would prefer, however, rail shot and shatter slug to be 30m, and to increase the range of the mortar strike. Also the utility that extends ranges should be extending by +5m, not +2m. Give some real options there. For folks who have played VG/PT a long time (since release for me), one of the things thst felt unique and very fun about the class was its ranges abilities. When I came back to the game and saw them gone I was very disaplointed. It was one of the aspects of this game that I really enjoyed thst I couldn’t get in any other game. The fun factor was diminished. From a practical standpoint, the range allows two things 1) for you to better coordinate damage against priority targets, almost as good as a ranged dps, and getting out of melee for short periods of time was not nearly as impactful to a VG/PT as it was a Jugg or assassin. 2) it allowed you to stay in guard range and still do respectable damage/control. As a ranged tank you dont need to choose between engaging a target and protecting a friendly. You can, while retaining respectable efficacy, do both. That is a differentiator. These were why I really liked the range on thr class, and why I miss it.
  3. Your tradeoff assertion (10% for 15% damage dealt) is not what the poster was suggesting. The poster said 10% for 5%, stacking 3 times, which means at three stacks it would be 30% reduction for 15% damage dealt. Also, we should avoid using numbers if possible in these discussions because they are distractions. We get caught up in numbers that will of course be tuned and miss the general point, which is significant damage reduction in exchange for soemwhat less damage dealt. Instead of picking at the numbers chosen in the example, we should Be critiquing the tradeoff concept itself. The numbers can and will change and at this point they do more to derail discussion. Regarding the actual tradeoff proposed, overall it is a reflection of the current state of PT/VGs lack of comparable survival tools. It is understandable, but if we leverage tactical items to address fundamental problems with the class, then we have effectively wasted the tactics slot and it will be a must-have with no other variety. So I believe we should not be attempting to use tactics to solve class balance problems. Instead we should assume that the rebalancing addresses those problems so tactics do not become an inflexible crutch. So in that respect, I find this damage reduction in exchange for damage dealt reduction fundamentally flawed in that it is leveraging tactics to solve a problem that would be better served by overall class/discipline balance. Such a tactical item should not exist.
  4. I was thinking that a lot of the shared ability tactics could be shared with the dps versions of the class, so things like the knockback for jet charge would be intended more for the dps disciplines, same with defensive taunt. Incan see some taunt tactics being discipline specific. The pull becoming a charge taxtic is for flexibility. The taunt options, along with many others would likely need value tweaks. I don’t expect the 30% would work for the different uses. Also, just brainstorming ideas and that value adjustments are a given (thatms why i tried not to include any numbers - numbers can and will change as needed to balance, so they are a distraction). Also a thought on balancing the Taunt effects - tie taunt’s effects to defensive stats, so it scales up the more defensive stats you have. So if you are a skank tank, taunt will do gery little, but if you are super tank, taunt can give a damafe bonus to a single target to compensate. I’m thinking Warhammer taunt mechanics, where jt was used to make tanks who were ignored more dangerous and competitive damage wise. By scaling the effect eith defensive dtate, it clearly makes it a compensation for stacking defensives instead of something abused by skanks. A few more thoughts: 1) Conal Flamethrower - becomes a cone of tear gas or something along those lines that no longer deals damage but instead becomes an AOE mesmerize effect (like the sith warrior scream only conal). Heat cost/cooldown adjusted as needed. 2) Shoulder Cannon - shoulder injector - instead of firing to do damage, fire to heal yourself a more significant amount. Same cooldown and usage, it just becomes a self heal. 3) Vent Heat - instead of dumping heat when it gets kow, provides x seconds of reduced heat buildip by some amount (flat or %). Idea is the tradeoff of immediate dumping of higj hear vs helping avoid reaching that point. 3) Oil Slick - Oil spew - instead of dumping a huge amount of oil on the ground, it sprays oil around you for the duration, but at a reduced AOE size. Tradeoff is more value in mobile situations at the cost of reduced area of effect. 4) Thermal sensor override - instead of reducing heat it dhaves x seconds of the cooldown of the next ability used. So for example, you could use it to eliminate the cooldown on a short cooldown ability, such as getting back to back rocket punches, or shaving some time off a defensive cooldown. 5) Thermal sensor override 2 - Immediately generates 4 heat screen stacks (may need a longer cooldown). For getting that immediate absorb when you need it most, or to extend sustained tanking ability. 6) Ord Onslaught - No longer channeled, but does reduced (half?) damage. This trades throughput for burst and gives you an extra GCD. 7) Shoulder cannon 2 - death blossom - SC range reduced to that of flame sweep, but hits all targets around you (possibly at reduced damage) 8) Shoulder cannon 3 - SC becomes passive and triggers on rocket punch. Damage adjusted as needed. Tradeoff here is burst vs consistency. 9) Ord Onslaught 2 - No longer AOE, does increased damage to a single target. Tradeoff of AOE vs single target burst. 10) Shatter Slug - range increased by 20m, longer cooldown. 11) Shatter Slug 2 - damage significantly increased, but it now has a short delay before detonating (think shorter-ranged explosive dart like effect). Tradeoff for more AOE damage but not immediate. 12) Rocket Punch - Is now AOE, reduced damage. More AOE/ST tradeoff. Not a lot of room here to mess with this one given how critical it is to the main rotation. Same with rail shot, difficult to come up with core ability tactics. 13) Guard - Range of guard increased to 30m, but damage split is also reduced (maybe frol 50->30% somehere in that area). Tradeoff is more guard positioning flexibilitu but less effective compared to being in normal guard range 14) Kolto overload - Always active, but has reduced codown. This is a control vs throughput tradeoff. You no longer control kolto overload, but it will be available more often. Useful if you are light on healing or are frequently or likely focused and would have it activated almost on cooldown anyway. Now for some ideas about adjusting passives, instead of active abinities. Warhammer tactics did this. Most tactics were passive effects. 15) Critical Shielding - Shield chance reduced X% but chance to shield critical hits increased by 3X% (numbers are just for example, would need tweaking obv). Idea is you are trading normal mitigation for burst mitigation. This is obviously mkre of a pvp oriented tactic. Since many dps stack critical in pvp this may be a worthwhile tradeoff of consistency normal vs consistency against burst. 16) Ablative Shielding - If a hit were to do less than x% of your health in damage, it has reduced shielding chance (-20%)? If the hit is higher than that amount, it has increased % chance to shield (+20%?). More likely to shield big hits but much less likely to shield small hits. Again a consistency tradeoff a overall this should make the tank take more predictabke damage, but may take more overall if the fight or source has a lot of small damage. 17) inverse of 16 - better tanking small hits, less likely to shield big hits. May be useful in fights with many small adds, for example. 18) Guarded Shielding - chance to shield guard hits increased significantly. Tradeoff here is opportunity cost (it takes a tactics slot, but you may not end up taking much guard damage from the fight). In general I think that due to opportunity cost, its Ok for some tactics to be strict benefits, especially if the benefit is highly situational. Perhaps more to come later.
  5. I really like this self- Carbonite effect as a tactic for Carbonize. Even if its just yourself, having a temporary immunity for a few seconds (i would say make it 7 seconds or so, just long enough to tempt them to move on. then it has great value in pvp as an anti-focus ability, something this class badly needs. I would think even the current cooldown is fine, since it isnt a self-heal. It also fits the bounty hunter theme quite well (not so much the trooper, but it could be a heavy deployed personal defense shield for the trooper). Also it needs to be cancellable early by pressing the button again. In PvE this ability should cause you to lose threat (or maybe not?) but perhaps taunt + self-carbonize mighjt be a nice unique offering for powertech/vanguard tanks to immune boss mechanics, sort of like how assassins have something like that.
  6. It sounds like tactical items are the same feature Warhammer Online had called “Tactics”, which was also by Mythic and was, IMO, a great feature. I hope we have multiple slots, like 3-4 like WAR and a large number tonchoose from, along with loadouts that can be swapped easily out of combat. Some tactics ideas. Some generic ones like the taunt could be applies to all tanks. 1) Taunt - Change taunt’s damage dealt by target into a damage bonus against that target, but only for the tank. (This should be tank-specific, not dps disciplines). Exact values and possible cooldown increase for balancing. Only affects players. 2) Taunt 2 - Change taunt’s effect to be more damage dealt TO that target, but for everyone except the tank (so it benefits the group, not the tank). Only affects players. 3) Taunt 3 - Change taunt’s effect to be a large damage reduction from the target, but only to to the tank (the inverse of taunt’s normal effect, making it a personal defensive cooldown). Only affects players. 4) Grapple - Change grapple to pull you to the target, effectively giving you a second charge on a longer cooldown. 5) Jet Charge - change Jet charge to knock back and root the target in place of charging to them. Range changed to 4m. Turns Jet charge into a defensive tool. 6) Jet Charge 2 - Jet charge can now *also* target friendly players. Allows you to use it to get to safety like intercede. Still retains its ability to charge an enemy. 7) Heat Blast - Buffs shield chance (additively) instead of absorb. May also need to tweak values, but the intent here is to make a consistency tradeoff by shielding more often but for smaller values, making the tanking more predictable and less spiky. 8) Hydraulic Overrides - Loses some of the speed bonus (5-10%?) in exchange for immunity to being pulled or charged. 9) Hydraulic Overrides 2 - Reduces duration (50%?) in exchange for significantly reduced cooldown (50%?). More frequent usage which can be beneficial for its movement impairment immunity effect. 10) Hydraulic Overrides 3 - Loses the speed bonus but gains significant fall damage reduction and a large increase to jump height (this may allow getting to unintended locations, maybe warzone-only?). Retains impairment immunity. 11) Jet Charge 3 - Jet charge no longer requires a target and moves you forward 30m at same elevation, but damages everything in your path. 12) Grapple 2 - Grapple pulls an additional target closest to the main target, but its range is reduced. 13) Grapple 3 - Grapple can now be used a second time within 5 seconds on a different target (including friendlies) and it will instead pull the first target to the second. Casting twice on same target will pull it to you like normal. The main tradeoff with this is the 2nd GCD for a self-pull in exchange for more ways to urilize the ability. I’ll reply with more later as I think of them.
  7. I did not talk about closers or time-on-target. I talked about control and mobility. The purpose of snares isn't just to keep time on target - they significantly help control a fight. Its impossible for a vanguard to have time-on-target for a pillar-humping healer if a guardian/jugg is perma-snaring him. The snare serves many purposes. Time on target is one of them. And several abilities are no longer available to a Vanguard if he isn't in melee range, most notably the interrupt and stockstrike (one of the only things that can proc a snare). As another poster mentioned, putting down snares helps teammates escape. Since the snare is AOE you can slow down entire groups and delay them from reaching a cap point or help your huttball carrier get distance. Or you can snare the huttball carrier and keep him from blitzing across the map. It is a control ability. Same thing with Force Push, it's a control ability. Case-in-point, I was running the huttball yesterday, and some guy was up on the top railing of course - I charge him, snare him, run a little ways down the ramp, then turn and force push him halfway across the map (angle of incidence matters with push). Nobody else nearby, easy and fast score. Were I a Vanguard, I could have done that with charge but with no way to push or reliably snare I couldn't stop the enemy from running past me and punting me, or possibly killing me before I reached the goal. It certainly would have taken longer. Ball-running is something Guardians do *way* better than Vanguard. The leaps are more than just gap closers. They are mobility. Guardian Leap is a fantastic ability that gives Guardians unrivaled mobility and speed in crossing a map. A great use I've seen of leaps and talents of Guardians is in Illum zerg fights. While a Vanguard can stand back and tag peopel for kills, and pull in every so often for a quick kill, the Guardian can do something the Vanguard really can't - and that is incite a zerg to attack. Zergs are primal creatures and if someone presses forward to attack, they often follow. Likewise, when someone attacks you in a zerg, your natural instinct is to back away, and backing away is a primal sign of submission and causes animals like dogs to attack. It also has the same effect on Zergs. So Guardians can leap in, do an aoe, and a snare (while they have immunity to cc after the leap), then Guardian-Leap back to safety. It still requires a healer on you of course, but what this does is gets the enemy to back up a little, some of them get aoe snared so they straggle, and the act of charging in causes your zerg to move up and attack. The end result is that you push the zerg forward and usually get a few enemies killed. Without the CC immunity and without the friendly leap, jumping in would be suicide. But guardians can do it and survive, and push the zerg forward. It's a bit of an advanced topic, but gets to the heart of the value of mobility and the unique role Guardians have in PvP. The only thing a Vanguard really has to control a fight is Harpoon. It's a good ability, but its primarily defensive in huttball, and useful to pull a healer into a zerg. Not saying its bad, but it's different. Having a pull enables things Guardians can't do. Again, to say a Vanguard can do everything a guardian can do is false.
  8. I like all of those changes. Keeps warzones competitive with Illum in terms of Valor. The medal rewards will encourage people to play and not drop out of warzones. Alderaan / dot capping change was needed. The commendations on vendors are nice. Good change. I know people are thinking the whole credit towards daily thing will Kill Ilum pvp but it really depends on how much credit they award. If 1 warzone = 1 armament...you're still going to want to do Ilum rather than 30 warzones each day. The valor buff to warzones was also needed to keep it competitive with Ilum. The other alternative was to nerf Ilum's valor. I think buffing valor for the WZs was the right call.
  9. Every MMO ever released had issues with CC early on. WoW has done several revisions of it. SWTOR is no different. It's not terrible, like in many other games in the past, but it has some frustrations for sure. Resolve definitely has some bugs. I've had full resolve and been unable to even throw the huttball while immobilized. I'm wondering if the stun-on-charge juggs/guards can get in the tanking tree is not affected by resolve. It appears to me that several things aren't affected by resolve (like that & grenades). They need to do a pass and test each and every CC in house and ensure it is properly building resolve & properly not-cc'ing when at full resolve. Something is wrong there, they just need to look into it. As far as solutions go, 1) I like earlier recommendations about lowering the cooldown of the CC-breaker. I think 30 seconds could safely be shaved off it without causing problems. I'd like to see the lowering talent shave off another 15-20 on top of that. 2) CC-break should definitely reset on death, every time. Pretty dumb that it doesn't. 3) And of course, a good look at resolve and find the bugs that cause complete stunning even with a full resolve bar. It seems some CC effects aren't affected by resolve, and it isn't just immobilizes/snares. 4) Looking at resolve decay could also be of help here. Part of the reason we deal with so much CC is that most CC does not put you on resolve, and after several seconds, the resolve decays away so the next CC lands full-effect. The main thing Resolve protects against is chain-CC, and that's about it. If the decay was a little slower we'd see full resolve bars more frequently instead of just when getting chain-cc'd. I think immobilizes are actually OK the way they are implemented. Most are tied to charge and immobilze is an important ability for melee classes. If anything I'd like to see immobilizes on ranged classes looked at. Bioware has a bunch of mythic folks in the house, you'd think they could bestow upon them a decade of PvP wisdom. Mythic had the right idea in Warhammer where Tanks were primary CC classes, and tanks were the only class that could perma-snare, etc. THey also showed what happens when you give too much CC to a ranged dps class (bright wizards, lol). If they stick to principles where melee are primarily the classes with knockdowns/immobilizes, and tanks have the most CC they'll be in a good place. Mythic also dealt with CC issues in both Warhammer and DAoC. That said, Bioware hasn't done an overly terrible job. What they have now is workable but could use some tweaks.
  10. I too have both and there are some significant differences. And no, Vanguard cannot do everything better. Guardian excels at control, with long-lasting spammable aoe snares on no cooldown, which can be talented to be dirt cheap or even free. Can a Vanguard consistently snare? No, it's one of the weaknesses of the Vanguard, as every snare only lasts 2s and is only tied to either Stockstrike or Ion depending on spec. Vanguard has pull, which is amazing and awesome and between that and charge it is nearly impossible to escape a vanguard, and their 2s snares from time to time are the icing on the cake. That said, they lack consistent means of controlling others, or controlling a fight. No long-lasting snares. No punts. Their only means of removing people from a location is to pull them. It is easy for a healer or really anyone to pillar hump a Vanguard, as they have no means of consistently snaring them and stoping them. Pillar humping healers have driven me quite crazy as a Vanguard. Freezing Force makes it a non-issue. Guardian has a nice plethora of cc too. It depends on spec, but Stasis, Push, and Hilt Strike means lockdown. Vanguard has a ranged stun, but that's it. Guardian has more capacity to set up a long chain of frustration for a healer, all the while keeping them perma-snared and unable to escape. Another area they differ is mobility. Vanguard has charge, but only in the tank tree, and without it they are sorely lacking in the mobility department. Guardian has charge all the time, and can spec into a second one. Additionally they have an intervene on a short cooldown as well. Leaping to hostiles, leaping to friendlies, and the option of a short leap via talents. That's a lot of mobility. It's a lot more mobility than the Vanguard. Class resource is more reliable on a Guardian. The focus-builder is on a 1 min cooldown, while the Vanguard's reload is on a 2 min cooldown. The Guardian also doesn't have any situation where he can become completely screwed resource-wise. A vangaurd with no ammo cells is quite screwed for a while. While a Vanguard can unload all ammo for burst, they can't easily recover from it unless reload is off CD. Guardians have a better resource mechanic for PvP IMO. And lastly, Guardians have more in the way of survivability. Saber Ward is in every way superior to energy shield, though it is on a longer cooldown. Enure is better than the 15% health regen ability, and through talents they can get another 40% damage reduction. I'm not saying the Vanguard is a bad class - I personally love it; very well done, very fun. But it can't do everything the Guardian can do and better. It is simply untrue. They have different toolsets, and different strengths/weaknesses.
  11. I started a guardian and the PvP is...painful sub-20. The reasons I've divined so far... 1) You don't have some key CC abilities like Awe, Push & Stasis, the latter builds focus 2) You don't have key ranged attacks like Saber Throw & Dispatch 3) Don't have the added mobility of guardian leap 4) Don't have the talent points to get key pvp utility, like the extra charge, better focus generation, or survivability. (Yes, I know Dispatch is only 10m, but I played Powertech a lot and 10m is a perfectly fine range to avoid getting kited and continually doing damage in most cases). That short list alone means you're going to get kited six ways from Sunday and have little options in doing damage/building focus. In addition to the above problems, Low level Guardian PvP also has focus building issues, mostly due to not having a fleshed out talent tree. You can't use the tank stance because you don't have the focus building talents in it, like the one that reduces sweep & blade by 1 whenever you defense an attack, nor does it have the reduced internal cooldown of Soresu forum down to 3 seconds to build a focus instead of the default 6. Switching into tank stance kills your builders and the damage. I expect it to get better at levels 22-26, where I can get the CC immunity after a force charge, which will stop the immediate charge->knockback situations from inquisitors and mercs. Also the 4 focus on stun/sleep/knockdown is something else I spec'd into. Basically as you get the abilities I listed above and as you get more talent points I expect Guardian to get a lot better in PvP, but so far it is the most painful, least-effective class in PvP sub mid-20's. Its only key value is the ability to aoe-snare people and act as a distraction. Damage is limited due to getting kited and not having much time on target. Survivability is low due to not having the talents/abilities. I think that will change, but not noticably until 30's and 40's. Interestingly enough, the Sniper was one of the most effective I ever played in PvP at low levels. You get the execute, punt, and entrench abillities in the teens, so you have all of the core abilities you need to do your job. The Guardian doesn't get their core abilities to do their job until much later, and they are heavily reliant on talents. I'll ride it out some more and see how it improves. By comparison, the Powertech I leveled also had difficulty at these lower levels, but it was less noticable since most of my attacks were 10m-30m.
  12. I'm seeing this on all Jedi knights regardless of level or gear now. I see fancy level 50 robes with the bubble-butt, but a Consular right next to him with nearly the same model does not have it. C'mon bioware, fix this.
  13. The question I have is why would you be a clicker at all? It's slower, less-efficient, and it takes more effort to move the mouse around the screen and click stuff than it does to move your finger a few millimeters while your mouse is manaing camera/targeting.
  14. Yes, tank threat is off because it doesn't scale. At end-game gearing... DPS gets more dps in the form of primary stat increases, Tanks get more survivability and only get dps increases from primary stat increases, which is very small. Additionally, dps specs put out a lot more damage than tank specs. The +50% threat a tank gets usually covers this for lower tiers of gearing and lower levels, where tanks don't actually stack any defensive stats and have damage stats like everyone else. As the gearing continues, DPS starts getting further and further ahead of tank dps as the tanks get survivability stats and the dps gets dps improvement stats. So you will inevitably reach a point where tank's can't hold threat on dps due to gearing. I see it in Rakata gearing and a bit before. You see it at lower levels if you have an under-geared tank or very geared dps. The only option is for tanks to drop some tanking gear/stats in favor of dps, or to change their spec to one that favors more dps. The game needs a way for threat to scale with gearing. WoW had the right idea by making threat scale with HP, as tank HP increases quite a lot on tank gear vs dps gear. So the preferred solution here would be for tanks with more HP gear (i.e. tanking gear) to put out more threat than tanks with lower HP (lower tiered gear or not tanking gear).
  15. So I tried out a Jedi Guardian, got a cool new robe, and tried it on in the viewer. It looks like this - cool! http://www.liberty-clan.com/gallery/viewer.png Then I put it on, and looked at what my character is outside the viewer, and the robe actually looked like this. http://www.liberty-clan.com/gallery/outside.png Notice the difference in the lower-half of the player. Same player, same model, same item. Where did the bubble-butt come from? We got some Mix-a-lot fans in the dev team or what? It looks like female Type 4 is lower garmet is being applied to my Type 2 male. Also, why is the image in the viewer different from the image on the character? Shouldn't they be using the same rendering? I see this problem on other players too. My buddy also sees the same graphical issue on me, so it isn't just my PC. It also doesn't appear to be class related - I've seen Sentinels with the same issue. And it may not be body type related either, as I think I've seen it on Type 3 as well as Type 2 males, but it is less prominent since Type 3 males are larger. Plz fix. Its cosmetic but the character being out of proportion is really irritating. Ruins the whole awesome Jedi feel.
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