5.0 Operative Healer changes Curative Swell: Kolto Infusion grants curative swell, increasing the critical chance of your next surgical probe by 100%. This effect can only occur every 18s. How critical chance works: Any critical chance over 100% is converted to surge or critical modifier. Without applying other critical passives to the class, this would be a ~60% increase in critical modifier increase every 18s on surgical probe. IF surgical probe did 4000 healing, then: Principle*(Current Surge + Autocrit overage + [Passive modifier]) = Total critical heal 4000*(1.7+.6)=9200 Thoughts: Operative healers are still disadvantaged since 3.0. That disadvantage was the process of smart heals that both merc and sorc got in 3.0 that is very synergetic with their overall styles. These changes don’t really go onto the operatives strength in that is raw output through HoTs. The biggest problem that we faced was Bioware’s passive stance on Kolto Wave. An ability that requires a group to stack up and required to be casted. Bioware furthered decreased out HoT potential in 4.0 when they increased the length of Kolto Probe. This decreased our HoT potential (as well as decreasing our burst potential) as the following: Pre-3.0: Kolto Probe was: Heal/15seconds Post-3.0: Kolto Probe is: Heal/18seconds A common burst technique was if a target had two kolto probes, if you surgical probe, you’d not only get healing done by surgical probe but a double kolto probe would also generate a heal. Thus decreasing burst healing from surgical probe. Onto 5.0. The change is nowhere near what operatives needed. First, Kolto Wave still remains a big problem for the kit. It kills mobility for the class to kite. If it was a cast to place on the ground and no channel, then it would be better or if you change the number of people to heal to 2-4 and increase healing done by it, then it will work. Second, HoTs don’t do enough healing. Burst healing is almost pointless on an Operative because our burst potential is judged on casting and praying to the gods, the other healer or dps won’t interrupt the ability. Interrupt Injection spam = dead target. Sure the new passive will attempt to sustain the person through burst, but during that 18s cooldown you’re back to praying. Third, cleanses. This is broader towards all healers, but all healers can’t cleanse all CC. Ops/mercs can’t cleanse force and sorcs can’t cleanse tech. Another tangent is that healers can only cleanse 2 debuffs. this is the biggest flaw because the damage modifiers applied by dps clogs up debuff bars and you can’t guarantee a cleanse to a CC if they’re on that person. A simple fix is just to have cleanse clear ALL cleansable debuffs or prioritize CC over damage modifiers (Damage modifiers are a useless concept btw). A new passive I would have personally like to have seen is something that revolves around HoT healing increases like: Currative Swell: Surgical Probe has a 30% to trigger Currative Swell, causing all periodic heals to be increased by 15% for the next 12 seconds. This effect can only occur every 18 seconds. [This is just an example of what I wish to see in operative changes, values subject to changes] -Te'fia

What a reward. Six months of Pre-season 7, and like six months of Season 7 and all they could do is: Titles, Color Crystals, and a mount? What's so hard about asking the Cartel Market team to make something that is a reskin but is still unique in the sense of a reward skin. Remember Season 1, where you got: A reskin outfit of the endgame PvE gear that looked cool A reskinned weapon An exclusive Rancor mount (other skins came out but the PvP was exclusive) The generic All-star titles A reskin pet Anyone who has ever done Season 1 or look back at that season envy those people with those rewards. There are a lot of people I know who really wanted the rancor mount, but they just couldn't get to the tier. There are people who loved the armor set because it was something that made that player stand out. Heck, just the other day, I got a compliment for wearing that exact armor set. **This does not imply that you should rehash those rewards for other seasons. What I'm saying is that players want rewards that feel justified to get rating for. When people saw the S1 or S3 rewards, people flocked to the ranked scene to try and get the sets. Some people were successful while other failed. Those people who got it legitimately felt gratification for getting it and others to not have it. If only Bioware actually reads this. -Te'fia

If you remove guard, it'll make players actually learn to kite more (and better) and not just stand in cleave or LoS of the enemy. Guard just promotes back combat decisions from other players. Players would think "Oh I don't need to break because of guard" or "I have guard, I don't need to move out of LoS of range" or "I don't need to kite" from either the DPS or healer. It's a poor combat design. Tanks should just be a PvE spec for FPs/Ops or a PvP objectives player. Not a 4th person in a ranked arena. Tanking in this game is beyond broken. Tanks can stack full DPS gear and a shield without mitigation stats and still do top damage. But I doubt Bioware sees this as a design flaw and more of a positive because they like to see "metrics" of "tank viability".

Take healing output from injection/wave and put it into KP and RN. Move some upfront healing in Infusion and put it in it's HoT. Remove CD on Infusion. Optional: Put Surgical Probe on a CD but make it an ability that buffs Infusion hella big. Operatives should be a heavy HoT based class, but on live it's more upfrontal healing and that just doesn't fit with the playstyle of the class over the years. -Te'fia

How to balance a game: 1) Fairness: Players of equal skill should have an equal chance at winning regardless of gear/stats/datacrons/etc. 2) Options: Players must be able to play any class they wish to play regardless of how well the class performs. All classes don’t have to be equal, there should be some variety in the degree they deal dmg/peel 3) Tiers • God tier (There should be no class in this tier) • Top tier (Very good but that doesn’t mean to nerf) • Middle tier (Very good and viable) • Bottom tier (You can still win, but it will be challenging • Garbage tier (There should be no class in this tier) The first step to balancing is to get rid of any class in God tier. As god tier classes will make the whole game unbalanced and play testing would be impossible. God tier classes also make it nearly impossible to balance other classes. Second is to lift any garbage tier classes as they would be the easiest to balance just by changing value stats around. 4) Building feedback: The combat team shouldn’t be looking to be expert designers, but to be expert players. By being an expert player, only then can you build up the feedback to balance and how the players perceive the changes you make. The goal is to see what the changes bring to the players point of view, not the designers (your) point of view. 5) How to find these experts: Don’t look to people who have been working in the gaming industry for x years or what they accomplished in corporate. Look for people who have played your game for years, for those people will provide the best feedback and offer the best balancing options. It seems like the combat design team and PvP team need to take some lessons on what is wrong with this game. The hardcore community should have the highest priority as they are the people who will provide meaningful feedback and support the overall community -Te'fia EDI: I live 5 mins away, just give me a day and all will be fixed.

eHPS > HPS. Ops are notorious for overhealing. But to get high eHPS as a Op, you have to assume you won't get interrupted/tunneled and everyone in range for maximum effectiveness i.e. 4 people get RN, at least 4 people get Wave, etc. The problem is not numbers, it's the mechanics around how Operative heal is what makes them so bad. The fact that roaming mend can travel 80m. That the only smart heal OPs have is only 10m while other classes are 30m. Smart healing is just too good for Merc and Sorcs. There's no changing values to make healers on par, especially in ranked. You'd have to redesign Op healing for it to work. Unlike Sorcs, Ops don't have a button to have Insta Crits. Our Injection + Surgical combo is not as good as Dark Infusion + Dark Heal combo. Our Insta cast abilities do less healing than a Sorcs Insta ability. We have no interrupt immunity, they do. We don't have 2 CC breaks, they do. Their utilities can actually apply to their healing spec while Op utilities blow. List goes on and on. It's not the numbers, but the way or means to get numbers that make Ops at a disadvantage. -Te'fia

Hottie! <3 -Te'fia

Story time: >New Rishi Map >Good game tied 1-1 >Last round starts >Drops down from spawn and lands on a box >Globalled by Terrain >Loses 20 rating -Te'fia

Bioware needs to remove the new arena from the rotation for ranked PvP. I've played about 30 games on the new Rishi map and almost half the time people die from ingame assets killing them from being stuck in objects. This is just something players cannot simply control and it really jeopardizes rating for people because of factors that no player can control. Another comment to the PvP team about arena maps in the future: Please just make arenas that are not "flashy" or aesthetically pleasing. PvP combat should be about movement, line of sight, and positioning. All we really need are maps that have a couple pillars, maybe a ramp, and open space to have maximum mobility. No random boxes, small ledges, or other random objects in our way. -Te'fia

I agree, #nerfoperatives.

I just hate the fact now that in order to counter high burst, we have to cast Injection more often than pre-3.3 (which was like 2-4 times a ranked match) up to 12-15 times and it just destroys energy management. I was in a solo ranked where the 2 enemy PTS did 3.5k each and the mara was holding 2.8k. Their burst alone made me Surgical Probe > Injection > Infusion > Injection > Instant Injection and at that point my energy management is screwed. And the lame part is that they have burst up every 4-6 GCDs while my burst is reliant on if I wasn't interrupted or if my energy isn't destroyed.

I guess I'm just use to my Resto Druid in WoW...

Critical Chance = Crit Rating % + Mastery % Auto Crit = Critical Chance (%) + Surge (%) As for the whole relic situation I did more equation solving and here's the results (I'm lazy, so here's a picture): Crit + Mastery Power It concludes that for relics: Mastery > Power > Crit for Autocrit every 1 min Power > Mastery > Crit for standard crits Then doing 100 abilities with 100% uptime it comes out to: [Crit Chance*(Damage*(1+surge))] + [(100-Crit chance)*(Damage)] Crit: (35*8570)+(65*5000)=624950 Mastery: (33*8682)+(67*5177)=633365 Power: (32*8756)+(68*5203)=633036 The variation between Master and Power being .5% difference. This concludes that for relics, you want Power and Mastery. -Te'fia NOTE: If there are any mistakes, please point them out. I did this at 7am in the morning and I woke up at 9am the previous day.

Alacrity is heavily dependent on the length of the fight. It's why PvEers want to use it more than PvPers do. Their 5-10 min boss fights compared to sparatic short fights in Regs, 2-3 min matches in solo ranked, and 5 min matches in team ranked (or solo if there are tanks) are vastly different. Before 4.0, gearing as a healer is very personal. You could choose what stats you wanted (surge v. alacrity) because the DR on surge was different at the time. Gearing was very linear across any duration of a fight. Now, since crit rating applies to not only your crit chance but to your surge as well, your gearing is going to be more dynamic with the rest of the healers. Mainly due to the changes in crit and that it does not compete with power (now it's only in augments but not mods/enhancements) and the newer (higher) DR to crit chance. Now, ideally, you should change your gear mainly on the aspect of healing you're going to do to maximize all stats for that fight. Longer fights, you want to have more alacrity than you do crit. Fights where you're going to be CC'd more will demand more power than alacrity in augments. Shorter, high burst, fights will demand more crit than alacrity (or power in augments). -Te'fia EDIT: Also, Hottie, since 65 is the new cap. Shield Probe will do more absorbtion because it's formula is based off of standard health (health w/o endurance) and bonus power. Since both have increase in 4.0, it absorbed about 9k (8.9k for exact measurements) paired along with the 30% increase in heroic: 9 * 1.3 = 11.7k absorbed damage every 30s. Would you still take Revitalizers still or SP 30% increase buff? The only time when revitalizers could match SP is only if you're getting tunneled, then the differences would be: [(Damage Taken within 15s*(0.2)+(total health*25%)]/(11.7k*4) Note: Revitalizers is every 2 mins while SP is every 30s making you fit 4 in a Revitalizers CD window

And 13k crit spamable dark heals on my Madness Sorc aren't OP?