Medicine

Currently, Operatives are de facto the best healers in PVP. Our energy management is a total joke, our healing not relying on casts makes us much more mobile than sorcs and mercs and therefore largely preferred over the other two healers for both regs and rateds. I believe this spec is overpowered at the moment. I think the following changes would bring us down to the level of the other two healing ACs while not dropping us to the point of being no longer viable.

The rate limit on Medical Engineering should not be reduced below 9s.

The talent Evasive Imperative needs removed entirely. Free total cleanse/breaks most roots/shuts down several dps specs entirely, on a very short cd, makes no sense to be in the healing tree.

Surgical probe should have a small energy cost in addition to the TA requirement.

Durable Meds should be 2/4/6% or boost kolto injection by the current 3/6/9% instead and provide no energy reduction on kolto probes.

Concealment

I firmly believe this is the talent tree in the need of the most help atm. Our 4m range requirement makes us especially vulnerable to AOE (specifically, smash), snares and roots, and we do not have the tools to deal with this. I believe our damage is in a good place at the moment, and the energy management changes were amazing. However, I do think there are a few things that could be improved upon without returning to the days when the forums were flooded with people crying about concealment being overpowered. Survivability wise, we absolutely must have the same 30% AOE damage reduction available to our fellow stealthers. Borderline ridiculous that we didn't get it at the same time as deception. However, I understand the few remaining people that play this spec in PVE already dislike the amount of talent points that have to be placed in survival talents, so I would like to roll these into already existing talents without increasing the point costs.

30% AOE damage reduction added to Advanced Cloaking. Additionally, change the cd reduction from 7.5/15 15/30 to 15/30 30/60 for sneak and cloaking screen. This is well out of reach for medicine/lethality.

Combine Scouting with Infiltrator, add Evasive Imperative in it's place.

Add energy reduction for explosive probe to Flanking (maybe, might not be necessary with removal of energy cost on AB)

Remove the poisoned target requirement from Tactical Opportunity and decrease the rate limit to 6s.

Add shiv and lacerate to the surge bonus granted by the talent Meticulously Kept Blades.

In addition to the knockdown, add an automatic crit to Hidden Strike, requires and consumes one tactical advantage. Meaning, once every two minutes, we can open with a critical hit hidden strike, or if we vanish during combat with a tactical advantage, we can reopen with a critical hit hidden strike.

Make the evasion proc on Shadow Operative Elite 100%.

Remove the energy cost from Acid Blades and give us 10% damage reduction for 6s after applying its effect. This is similar to the way deception sins can chain blackout with their opener, maintaining excellent energy regen and 25% damage reduction for 12s. Ours would only be 10% to offset by the fact that we could maintain it for up to 30s a minute in sustained combat.

I believe these changes would bring our survivability and burst up to par with deception and thus make us viable for rateds, while not going so far over the top that we are overpowered in regs. (I also believe this would increase our PVE dps to a point that we can possibly get a spot in a progression team as concealment, but seeing as I couldn't find a parse for a conc op to do some math with, I cannot be certain.)

Lethality

Overall, I believe lethality is in an excellent place in PVP at the moment and have not experienced anything that makes me feel the spec to be too far above/under par. 30% AOE reduction would be nice, but unless you get specifically targeted or are positioning yourself incorrectly/not watching the fight I find it to not be too terribly troublesome. Energy management is excellent, damage is excellent, survivability is on par, burst is decent (but does require some setup).

General Thoughts

I would really like to see the baseline duration of tactical advantage extended and the additional duration buff in the Medicine tree removed. Not difficult at all lose stacks with all the cc in the game at the moment. I imagine this is a big issue in operations as well, similar to stacks of Annhilator for Anni Marauders. Would also really like to see worthwhile set bonuses on our PvP gear.

2 words... a finisher.

Most of the rest i completely agree with but it would be nice to get a "below 30%" finishing move like other melee classes have.

2 words... a finisher.

Most of the rest i completely agree with but it would be nice to get a "below 30%" finishing move like other melee classes have.

I thought about this also but we would be way too strong with it. As it is currently on live, if I catch someone with stun break on cd and no force barrier, they cannot even attack me until I'd be ready to use assassinate/vicious throw/etc a solid 75% of the time. This is even true for tanks, but maybe only 50% of the time, requires crits. If we could do that still, and in fact better, and have an execute? Broken, nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf.

Medicine

Currently, Operatives are de facto the best healers in PVP. Our energy management is a total joke, our healing not relying on casts makes us much more mobile than sorcs and mercs and therefore largely preferred over the other two healers for both regs and rateds. I believe this spec is overpowered at the moment. I think the following changes would bring us down to the level of the other two healing ACs while not dropping us to the point of being no longer viable.

 

The rate limit on Medical Engineering should not be reduced below 9s.

The talent Evasive Imperative needs removed entirely. Free total cleanse/breaks most roots/shuts down several dps specs entirely, on a very short cd, makes no sense to be in the healing tree.

Surgical probe should have a small energy cost in addition to the TA requirement.

Durable Meds should be 2/4/6% or boost kolto injection by the current 3/6/9% instead and provide no energy reduction on kolto probes.

Your suggestions nerf PvE healing more than they nerf PVP healing. Healing in PVE is as close as it has ever been and these changes would be a huge nerf. The only thing I think should be changed would be the refund of tactical advantage on targets under 30%. This allows operatives to spam this with kolto probes and run around til they are at a safer health level. The stacks will run out very fast even with Kolto Probes Medical Engineering if they are not refunded automatically and healing from HoTs by themselves are not enough to keep them up.

I'm fine with your suggestion on Evasive Imperative especially since this is more of a PVP ability that does not have much impact if any on PVE.

If you are going to make suggestions do not be shortsighted. Just because you may only PVP doesn't mean that changes should be made for PVP that will hurt PVE and visa versa. There are plenty of PVP only changes. The 2 that I suggest above (one is yours I agree with) would have little to no effect on pve healing but would bring operatives down in PvP terms.

Deleted. The post turned into half rant and half history lesson.

If anyone really wants to know how to balance the Medicine tree so it's back in line, they can ask me personally. I'll respond to PMs. I find the majority of the currently proposed solutions somewhat misinformed.

Maybe I'm playing my concealment op wrong but energy management is horrendous to say the least.

It's probably a rotation issue or you may be using roll/sever tendon too often. I can typically maintain 60-80% in sustained combat, but if you make a mistake at any point its very easy to find yourself dry.

It's probably a rotation issue or you may be using roll/sever tendon too often. I can typically maintain 60-80% in sustained combat, but if you make a mistake at any point its very easy to find yourself dry.

I only roll whenever I need to vanish out of combat, other than that I don't use it too often. I don't trust my teammates enough to roll all the way to the ball in HB and throw it back so that's out of the question lol. I only use sever tendon when I need to stop an enemy from leaving prematurely, it may be an issue on my part. I might have to change my rotation a bit to help with this. if anyone has any tips for me, I'm all ears.