He addressed the armor discrepancy problem by stating that they can and do self-heal to make up for it. And second, there are PLENTY of assassins in PvP and an adequate number in PvE. I don't think this is going to be a problem. And if it is, they'll have 50s on the server to make changes before live hits.

 

 

See, pvp.

pvp kids crying all day long and making the game worse for people.

I barely ever see any asassin tanks in pve.

Most guilds use powertechs or juggernauts.

Why not give Sorc/Sage healers back a quick heal or increase the healing output of the quick heals themselves? Resource managemant has been addressed but as now DPS has been given burst abilities, Sorc/Sages need one too! Deliverance/Dark Infusion quick cast on Conveyance/Force Bending should never have been taken out. The resource management changes were enough, relieving healers of this made healers interrupt fodder, and no easy way to heal through burst.

 

Bring it back!

Edited June 6, 2012 by Rollento

Some really good changes.Not perfect but good indeed.

BTW plis remove/change Courage in the Guardian tree,refuse to belive anyone actually put points in that.

*sigh* Just not an update to SWTOR without some kind of nerf for Scoundrel/Operative.

 

Reduced incoming healing from one talent.

 

Reduced damage overall from changes to how Adrenals and Relics will work. Just....great....

I get wanting to bring self heals under control (that's an easy concept to grasp). However........reducing their armor by 35%. Why such a massive hit? Seldom as a guardian tank did a shadow tank EVER out survive me or pull aggro off me. Thier 150% armor bonus really didn't do that much for them.

Not that it's a big deal, but ops/scounds got their self heal bonus dropped from 9% to 3%. They had to do something, it wouldn't be appropriate to not touch the two classes at all in a patch

All I can say is great post OP..seriously...this is the kind of detail I enjoy seeing when a new patch comes out. Overall I like the approach you are taking with class balance...I know there will be numerous threads crying foul and we were nerfed to death...but lets see what the PTS tells us after some good testing. These are just my personal thoughts and not meant as any sort of expert opinion. Thanks for the great write up....it is appreciated.

See, pvp.

pvp kids crying all day long and making the game worse for people.

I barely ever see any asassin tanks in pve.

Most guilds use powertechs or juggernauts.

 

Our experiences differ, then.

 

All I can say is great post OP..seriously...this is the kind of detail I enjoy seeing when a new patch comes out. Overall I like the approach you are taking with class balance...I know there will be numerous threads crying foul and we were nerfed to death...but lets see what the PTS tells us after some good testing. These are just my personal thoughts and not meant as any sort of expert opinion. Thanks for the great write up....it is appreciated.

 

And this

Edited June 6, 2012 by psi_overtake

Thank you SOOO much for the tank love!!!!

 

^This! It's been a long time coming.

u guys need to fix the force replenishment ability of sage/sorcerer heal spec as thoose classes are atm the crappiest healers in the game unlike operatives/scoundral or bountyhunter/commando they arent able to hold up theyr force during massive and extreme healing moments. the health for force ability all fine and all but the force u gain from that u will loose emidiatly on your healing,unlike the scans and stuff the other healing classes have! my main is an operative and never had energy problems with operations/flashpoint for healing on sage however all you end up is being low on force! ive checked internet and asked many sages and sorcerers and they all tell me the same,there is no good rotation for thoose healers as after 1.2 that class got screwed up bigtime!!! same goes for the pvpgear!

thx bioware for leting me grind my pvp gear for the first 3months and then make it completly obsolete from in 1go after 1,2!cheers for that i wont forget it! lost allot of subscribers with that one isnt it???

P.S. - What's the perfect way to know that classes are pretty close in balance? Every healer calls their class the crappiest healer in the game.

Yyyesssss!!!! Snipers ftw

Thank you SOOO much for the tank love!!!!

 

You mean nerfing threat management? That's turrible, let's clone WOW even more. Tanking wasn't hard to begin with and with those changes it'll become mindless. Paying a little attention to what I'm doing which made playing tank enjoyable instead of like in the other game.

 

I guess that's the overall goal in everything in the modern world, condition the populace to be as mindless as possible.

Edited June 6, 2012 by RocNessMonster

I thought after reading the PTS 1.3 patch notes that the class balancing looked very fair and was clearly thought out. Well done Bioware. This will greatly improve SWTOR and I certainly will keep my subscription to the game.

First of all, thank you for actually giving us some GD information. I would like to see more posts like this in the future rather than the devs saying that new features are coming "soon"

 

Secondly I think that the Merc needs an armor buff because they are so soft in PVP.

I think the armor nerf on Shadows/Sins is a little overkill. They didn't have a problem holding threat before, but they're definitely going to have trouble staying UP now. The healing nerf is definitely justified for PvP, but i'd suggest reverting the armor nerf. A "tank" spec that onloy has 15% more armor than the LIGHTEST armor class (dps sin/sorcerer) doesn't seem right.

Reading the patch notes for GS/Sniper it reads like the SS tree will require 2 more points put into it. Rapid Fire (previously a 1 point skill) is now 3 points. Did Burst Volley get reduced to a 1 point skill (from 3) and that information was omitted in the notes?

I hope the information I could share with you today has helped shed some light on our processes and our motivations.

Yes. I believe that this is the type of communication the dev team needs to engage in more frequently and on a regular basis.

u guys need to fix the force replenishment ability of sage/sorcerer heal spec as thoose classes are atm the crappiest healers in the game unlike operatives/scoundral or bountyhunter/commando they arent able to hold up theyr force during massive and extreme healing moments. the health for force ability all fine and all but the force u gain from that u will loose emidiatly on your healing,unlike the scans and stuff the other healing classes have! my main is an operative and never had energy problems with operations/flashpoint for healing on sage however all you end up is being low on force! ive checked internet and asked many sages and sorcerers and they all tell me the same,there is no good rotation for thoose healers as after 1.2 that class got screwed up bigtime!!! same goes for the pvpgear!

thx bioware for leting me grind my pvp gear for the first 3months and then make it completly obsolete from in 1go after 1,2!cheers for that i wont forget it! lost allot of subscribers with that one isnt it???

 

I can't agree that force management wasn't out of control pre-1.2. Warzones would last full 15 mins without anyone dieing because of how easy force resources were able to be kept up. I do, however, think its crap that Sage/Sorcs mana intensive quick heal doesn't heal adequately enough to justify its mana costs, and the Deliverance/Dark Infusion heal takes too long to cast, which in Warzones, is easily able to be interrupted. Only way a sorc/sage can survive now is by having a dedicated tank role assist them completely.

 

In my opinion, Pre-1.2 The difficulty it took to kill a Healer was fine, it was the resource management of force users that caused it to be game breaking. If they fixed the resource management issue, which everyone will agree with, then why did they have to further nerf the Conveyance/Force Bending buff of Deliverance without buffing the quick heals of sages/sorcs. 30% mana reduction on Deliverance is crap, we still run dry in Warzones. Better yet, we don't run dry because we're dead when a simple interrupt brings us to our knees since burst is so high right now.

Some of this looks really good. I hope the merc buffs/changes make up for the loss I've seen in damage with my BH. (the previous nerfs were intensely disappointing.) The tanking changes seem promising, as does the sniper buff.

 

My main characters are warrior tank, BH healer & sniper, so I'm pleased overall.

 

I do question the 'small change' to assassin self healing/armour. I was surprised to see a 50% drop listed as small. Those look like some pretty big drops to me.

So no addressing marauders/sentinals having the best defensive cool downs that all stack? Their defensive cool downs are just absurde.

No addressing scrappers and concealment ops dps and survivability? Nerfing Survival Training and Survivors Scars isn't helping them at all.

 

 

The list could go on, but the lack of any marauder and sentinals nerfs. more or less proves BW only cares about flashy light sabers. I can only hope that the listed changes arent the only ones that are going to come in 1.3. If so rated WZs will be nothing more then teams of 8 marauders or 8 sentinals in the top ratings.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Phlem

So i have a 50 sorc healer full WH and a 50 tank assasin mostly WH. In the last patch my sorc got super ****ed and OPs are now incredibly OP healers in pvp. NOW, my tank assasin is also nerfed, and the sorc is still just as bad. The best part, both my characters were biochem. So this means when the patch goes live, bioware will have put me in this situation from "balancing the classes": My sage healer has the worst survivability plus 4 casted heals and only one instant heal (unless you count purge). My tanksin's survivability is also reduced. AND, all of my biochem adrenals are now useless in pvp. OPS, Juggs, and PTs were either buffed or not touched. So now that RATED WARZONES are finally coming out, i have the two worst classes for pvp. I get to reroll an op and jug now, plus getting two new professions. Bioware is forcing me to start over in order to be competitive in Rated warzones, while people who chose FOTM classes like maras and ops are rewarded with two entire patches of being overpowered. I had hope that at least one of my classes would be useful, but it looks now like inquisitors will be absent in a lot of competitive rated warzones. I know i'm QQing, but imagine if you spent days of gameplay getting two classes geared that are now the only two nerfed classes in 1.3. It's like i spent all of my time just to lose to worse pvpers who have an ops healer behind them.

And when bioware nerf operative healers? powertech dps? No! shadows are more op than powertech or operatives (irony off)

 

The armor provided by Combat Technique/Dark Charge has been reduced to +115% (down from 150%).

 

And buff mercenaries? lol?

 

Pathetic

 

see u in gw2

Edited June 6, 2012 by Stratospheric

First of all, thank you for actually giving us some GD information. I would like to see more posts like this in the future rather than the devs saying that new features are coming "soon"

 

Secondly I think that the Merc needs an armor buff because they are so soft in PVP.

 

The already have the best armor in game for DPS...

The tank taunt is awesome as we have a shortage of tanks on my server. The level of communication is already bumping up. This is a great direction.