Looks like good news for concealment ops. Played a few wzs on the PTS and it's too early to say for sure but it looks like bioware is at least trying to address the issues that have plagued concealment ops -- namely mobility and energy management (but we're also getting a decent dps buff from improvements to lacerate).

First the most obvious change: New ability exfiltrate. Holy crap we have an actual gap closer. So far appears quite nice. Costs 25 energy but has no cooldown. Very useful for getting into or out of melee range. Also nice for moving through traffic while cloaked. An op can actually get to the bridges first in voidstar after the first door is bombed. Can also move you quickly

Energy management. Stim boost is essentially gone. The skill still exists but serves a completely different purpose. Its old energy regen buff is now an always-on +1 to energy regen per-second passive ability. THANK GOD. I have no idea what made bioware think it was a good idea to give the class that already had the most difficult energy management a "buff" that required even more energy micromanagement. Anyway those days are behind us. The new stimboost is on a 2 minute cooldown and grants a TA + 10% alacrity when used. Alacrity, btw now shortens the gcd on instants and improves energy regen proportionally. In short, it doesn't suck nearly as much as it used to and may even be good.

More energy management: Lacerate now costs 15 energy instead of 10 but whenever you proc collateral strike you GAIN 10 energy. THANK GOD. Lacerate and collateral strike have sucked since launch (FIVE skill points for a below-average filler attack screw-you-very-much bioware). Now normally this would be a meh-to-nice buff on energy management but . . .

Holy **** lacerate is good now. It now takes 7 skill points to fully buff lacerate but collateral strike now procs 70% of the time with no apparent nerf to damage and NO INTERNAL COOLDOWN. This gives a nice little buff on dps and means that lacerate actually costs on average 15 - (10 * .7) = 8 energy. Now we're freakin talking bioware. Took you a year but now we're finally freakin talking.

Lethality also has some features that look interesting. Way too early to say that operative lethality is viable but it looks very interesting. First off, exfiltrate looks like a major buff towards making lethality the skirmisher/LOS spec that bioware apparently intended in the first place. You can set up your dots from a distance, roll in, cull, and roll out much more effectively than in pre-2.0. With that in mind comes the first interesting skill:

Quickening: 2 skill points. Each time you use exfiltrate you have a 15/30% chance to gain quickening, which makes your next kolto inusion active instantly and cost 0 energy and 0 TA.

Kolto infusion has itself been reworked. It's now on a 9sec cooldown and when cast immediately heals for about half of kolto injection's hp and then an additional ~1.3-1.7x of that amount over the next 9 seconds. Basically it's now a somewhat bigger heal than kolto injection if your target lives for 9 seconds. Basically exfiltrate should give lethality ops more mobility and more survivability. I don't know how well it will work in practice but it looks promising.

Next new ability: Fatality. 3 point skill. Each time you use shiv you have a 20/40/60% chance to gain fatality which makes your next cull cost 0 energy and re-grant tactical advantage. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds regardless of how many points you invest. Lethality still has no ranged TA generator but this should help mitigate that in combination with exfiltrate. Again I don't know how well it will work in practice.

While we're on the subject of bonuses granted by shiv, there's now a big one in the first tier of the lethality tree. The shiv damage bonus has been replaced by Hit and Run. 2-point-skill. Each time you use shiv you get a 25/50% speed boost for 2 seconds. I imagine every single operative is going to take this skill regardless of spec. The mobility is just too good to pass up. 50% speed boost every 6 seconds is so much better than the sneak "buff" bioware tried to pawn off on us in 1.6.

Anyway back to the lethality-specific skills. The final one is Toxic Regulators. 1 point skill. Your dots no longer tick on players affected by your mezzes. Not quite as amazing as it might seem at first, since it only affects your mezzes. You can still screw up your team's cc =D . . . It does however offer some interesting opening burst for a lethality op. You can open with sleep dart, then apply your dots for free without breaking the mez. Then you can either combat stealth to get a TA from HS or just shiv ---> weakening blast ---> cull (cull again if procced) ---> debilitate ---> explosive probe ---> shiv ---> cull. Way more burst from stealth than the spec has ever seen before.

One interesting idea is to go high enough in the med tree to get the damage debuff on your sleep dart and then open with the above so you're stacking up your dots and your opponent hits with a wet noodle when he comes out of the mez. Unfortunately you have to give up weakening blast in this hybrid. Probably not worth it but veeeery interesting.

tl/dr: too early to tell but there is hope for dps ops for the first time in a long time.

Anyone else have thoughts from the PTS?

Edit:

On the PVE side of things, here's a concealment spec ops boss dummy pass I did with the stock, non-augmented level 69 gear you get on the PTS*:

*Fully buffed with rakata skill stim, but the gear alone gets you to 2500 main stat so the stim isn't nearly as big a deal as it used to be.

http://www.torparse.com/a/141067

2100 dps. If I were better about using orb strike and explosive probe on cooldown and keeping corrosive dart up it probably would have been 2150-2200. Not the 2500 that marauders can apparently do, but at least in the same universe. And this is without augments.

Overall energy management is much easier. You can actually afford to screw up without being energy starved for the rest of the fight.

Edit 2:

The above parse is vs. the ops dummy on my ship which is still level 50. Below is vs. the lvl 55 ops dummy on the fleet.

Pass on the fleet ops dummy for 2025:

http://www.torparse.com/a/142223

I agree that it's probably possible for concealment to be in the 2100-2200 range in un-augmented Arkanian gear with a very tight rotation.

looks promising, though when compared to the shadow/sin buffs, these buffs are kinda pitiful. Then factor in the improved sniper stealth detection, so we wont be able to ever approach them in stealth, and that net that wont let us get back into stealth...well, we'll see.

I'm not to thrilled about the gear change either. With the uncap expertise stat, and the fact that the set bonuses will now be on the armoring, we effectively use the 15% crit on backstab/backblast, unless you sacrifice a ton of expertise, which is more useful now.

The split in WZs zones could be ugly, as all these new skills are 51. So the 30-54 range, the 51-54 thinks are gonna destroy everyone in there with these new skills/etc. Dunno why they changed this, lowbie pvp never seemed to imbalanced to me (not like 50's pvp anyway)..

•Guardian: A new ability, Saber Reflect, has been added. Saber Reflect reflects all direct, single target ranged, Force, and Tech damage back to the attacker for 3 seconds. This ability is trainable at level 51.

Say hello to eating your own Backstab, plus Acid Blade - and maybe Orbital Strike plus Corrosive Dart - while a Guaridan/Jugg is Smashing/Force Screaming/Vicious Throwing you. That's going to hurt. Expect this to be auto-used on knockdown too, so bye-bye bursting them.

•Gunslinger: A new passive ability, Ready for Anything, has been added. Ready for Anything increases stealth detection while in cover, building up to 30 additional levels of stealth detection over 30 seconds. The effect ends when leaving cover.

30 levels is massive. Sneak only boosts Stealth by 15. Sneaking up on Gunslingers/Snipers is going to be rarer. They get the chance to pop you out of stealth from range, so no opener.

And then Shadows gert a teleport too. Though that's more designed to rub our noses in it, rather than directly neuter dps scoundrel/ops. And of course Smash is untouched, because that's a balanced spec and ability.

May not be as bad as it seems at first look. Guess I'll see what happens on PTS.

Say hello to eating your own Backstab, plus Acid Blade - and maybe Orbital Strike plus Corrosive Dart - while a Guaridan/Jugg is Smashing/Force Screaming/Vicious Throwing you. That's going to hurt. Expect this to be auto-used on knockdown too, so bye-bye bursting them.

 

 

30 levels is massive. Sneak only boosts Stealth by 15. Sneaking up on Gunslingers/Snipers is going to be rarer. They get the chance to pop you out of stealth from range, so no opener.

 

And then Shadows gert a teleport too. Though that's more designed to rub our noses in it, rather than directly neuter dps scoundrel/ops. And of course Smash is untouched, because that's a balanced spec and ability.

 

May not be as bad as it seems at first look. Guess I'll see what happens on PTS.

it only reflects the direct damage attacks, no AoE.

Personally, as a sniper i am looking forward to staying in cover and busting stealthers. It's time for our payback. The electronet is a very very welcomed addition. Stealth finally gets balanced in this game.

Orb strike is AOE so exempt from the damage reflection. Acid blade and corrosive dart are dots rather than direct damage so I suspect they're exempt too though I haven't tested it. Save your backstab until you've debilitated or flashbanged.

The only time snipers will get the full stealth detect buff is when one of them is node guarding (or your team is already getting roflstomped). 30 lvls of stealth detect is huge but 30 seconds sitting in one spot is an eternity. A shadow is still going to be a better node guard than a sniper so I'm not too worried about seeing sniper guards on serious teams.

Engineering snipers also lost a big buff to their shield probe so they'll be easier pickings for stealth.

Orb strike is AOE so exempt from the damage reflection. Acid blade and corrosive dart are dots rather than direct damage so I suspect they're exempt too though I haven't tested it. Save your backstab until you've debilitated or flashbanged.

 

The only time snipers will get the full stealth detect buff is when one of them is node guarding (or your team is already getting roflstomped). 30 lvls of stealth detect is huge but 30 seconds sitting in one spot is an eternity. A shadow is still going to be a better node guard than a sniper so I'm not too worried about seeing sniper guards on serious teams.

 

Engineering snipers also lost a big buff to their shield probe so they'll be easier pickings for stealth.

From my own experience i don't need to reposition often while being part of the big zerg. There is always somebody to shoot in my line of sight. I will have a pretty damn huge stealth detection bonus to flush you out.

Engineering has higher survivability because of having double shield probes and the huge 6% DR bonus while in cover.

Orb strike is AOE so exempt from the damage reflection. Acid blade and corrosive dart are dots rather than direct damage so I suspect they're exempt too though I haven't tested it. Save your backstab until you've debilitated or flashbanged.

Hopefully, you're right, we'll see what's covered by their definition of "direct", and whether there are any odd kinks to how it works. Bottom line is JGs/SJs will pop it when we burst, so we're gong to be eating our own burst a fair amount against these guys, not fun. And waiting on stun or mez before using the only reapplication of acid blade out of stealth isn't really an option I relish.

30 lvls of stealth detect is huge but 30 seconds sitting in one spot is an eternity.

Not so much for a sniper - they are already the game's bunch of immobile bunkers, and this is probably a big boost for their defences. If one can find a good spot and set up - whether on node defence or any other position they can sit and control terrain (huttball walkway over mid, Alderaan mid battle) they'll be able to spot and pick off stealthers moving through/around nearby, not just those coming to gank them. No more healthy, pulse-racing paranoia that I'm behind them about to blow their heads off.

As ever though, the proof is in the playing. Getting a forward roll as our big buff fills me to the brim with "meh", but I'll have to try it before I can really decide.

edit: On the positive side, bubblestun is going caster only. That will be a blessed relief.

Personally, as a sniper i am looking forward to staying in cover and busting stealthers. It's time for our payback. The electronet is a very very welcomed addition. Stealth finally gets balanced in this game.

Sounds like I should make full use of the time until patch 2.0

No! The developers have thought it out very well, read:

You will be able to see how many stacks sniper already has. It's in his buff bars. That basically means how close you can come to him before he detects you.

Having +5 stealth (is that how much you can get from your talents now?) + sneak = that means already 15m. So if he has 15 stacks, and you have sneak and the +5 talent, then you are both at 0.

If he has full 30 stacks, then the closest distance he will spot you with sneak and +5stealth, will be 15m, since you have the new jump, you need to come into 15m range without being detected, then jump with your new skill, which is 12m, and suddenly you are within 4m range for your hidden strike.

So theoretically, you should still be capable to open on the sniper. Even with 30 stacks of stealth detection. However, should you not have sneak availalbe, or just not have the +5 stealth skill taken, you will be seen from the range equal to the amount of stacks he has accumulated. More stacks = the further he will be able to spot you. As you can see, it's actually a very small sniper buff, the only change that it did, is forced you to save the sneak for them and not waste somewhere else.

It basically makes this match-up a little bit more balanced by giving snipers some more fighting chance against you. It demands just a little more effort from the concealment player.

By no means will stealthers be entitled to say that snipers are countering them, or something like that.

 

If he has full 30 stacks, then the closest distance he will spot you with sneak and +5stealth, will be 15m, since you have the new jump, you need to come into 15m range without being detected, then jump with your new skill, which is 12m, and suddenly you are within 4m range for your hidden strike.

 

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I'm confused about this part, can you clarify? If he can detect within 15m, and i need to get inside the 15m to roll, how will i stay in sneak to pop hiddenblade? Also, if i roll, which i assume uses a gcd, that goes him 1 gcd to detect within 4m, doesnt it?

One other thing, when BW states that the sniper will 'detect you' with these new stacks, does this mean you get popped out of stealth, or that only the sniper sees your outline and has to target you with an attack to pop you? So if i'm rolling/sneaking/whatever to him, he may see me stealthing up to him, but has to use a a skill within a gcd to pop me before i unload a hidden blade on him while still stealthed?

I'm confused about this part, can you clarify? If he can detect within 15m, and i need to get inside the 15m to roll, how will i stay in sneak to pop hiddenblade? Also, if i roll, which i assume uses a gcd, that goes him 1 gcd to detect within 4m, doesnt it?

 

One other thing, when BW states that the sniper will 'detect you' with these new stacks, does this mean you get popped out of stealth, or that only the sniper sees your outline and has to target you with an attack to pop you? So if i'm rolling/sneaking/whatever to him, he may see me stealthing up to him, but has to use a a skill within a gcd to pop me before i unload a hidden blade on him while still stealthed?

Stealth Detection - Stealth level = distance from where the sniper can spot you, but still he has to target and shoot at you to pop you out of stealth.

He has 30 stacks. You pop sneak, also talent +5 stealth from concealment (is it +5 now??). Come into 15m range from the sniper with 30 stacks. If you come closer, he will spot you. instead you scamper/exfiltrate 12m towards him, then immediately use hidden strike.

Theoretically if he has some crazy *** reactions he should be able to knock you back, but more often than not you will be able to safely open on the sniper regardless. You only dont have to mess up with the distance from where you scamper/exfiltrate towards him.

If you dont have +5 stealth talent taken, you are pretty much screwed. If you dont have sneaka available you cannot open on him. If you you have neither of these, you should never walk within the range of a sniper which has been sitting in cover for long enough. Especially as a healer or a sin tank, you will be spotted quite often if you are too close and careless.

Oh and stealth detection has a buff icon, you can see how many stacks he has by targeting the sniper.

See Ilmarinen how much i am doing for you, so that you could kill me?

Looks like I'll be playing leathilty alot more now

Concealment has more to worry than a sniper spotting them, it's the changes to shielding, which means all your tech attacks that do kinetic damage will not be shielded. You will be unable to do crap to tanks now.

I note that as the game has evolved over the year, its progressivlely becoming easier, first for all classes in general to spot us in stealth (they changed to standard detect ranges if I recall correctly, or that's how it felt) and now for select classes to catch us even easier and also prevent us getting back into stealth (Electro Net)

I think I would like to imagine that in a balanced 'wargame' scenario stealthers would then develop abilities to counter increasing stealth detection and inhibition. We haven't got those counter counter measures yet.

I will wach with interest to see how this increased limitation on our stealthiness pans out.

I don't believe stealth levels equate to simple metre rages for detection. I don't know precisely how stealth works in the game engine, but as an example, from experience I'd say that walking in front of someone makes it more likely they'll see you. Circling behind seems more likely to be successful. If this is true, and not just my imagination, it implies that there is a cone of increased chance to detect stealth in the direction a toon is facing.

Anyway, point is that the number of stacks of stealth detction on a sniper don't tell me "oh I can get to 15metres and still be safe". But it might say "go gank him now at 15stacks before his stealth detection gets so good you won't be able to later".

Haven't seen the roll in action, or how it would work with GCD, detection and reaching melee range to open from stealth. But that's the big question, experience will tell.

One other thing, when BW states that the sniper will 'detect you' with these new stacks, does this mean you get popped out of stealth, or that only the sniper sees your outline and has to target you with an attack to pop you? So if i'm rolling/sneaking/whatever to him, he may see me stealthing up to him, but has to use a a skill within a gcd to pop me before i unload a hidden blade on him while still stealthed?

Good question. I always read "detect" as "destealthed". Perhaps it means the old silvery outline and they still need to notice and pop you to break it.

Concealment has more to worry than a sniper spotting them, it's the changes to shielding, which means all your tech attacks that do kinetic damage will not be shielded. You will be unable to do crap to tanks now.

Ahh, did you mean "will now be shielded" ?!

Concealment has more to worry than a sniper spotting them, it's the changes to shielding, which means all your tech attacks that do kinetic damage will not be shielded. You will be unable to do crap to tanks now.

Yeah, Flechette Round, Vital Shot, go away. Great. Hope for crits I guess.

Yeah, Flechette Round, Vital Shot, go away. Great. Hope for crits I guess.

I've exagerrated, not all tech attacks. I was mostly thiking about lacerate, hidden strike, backstab, shiv.

As for distance, think about it, wouldn't that how the devevelopers probably intended for you to play it? I am 100% sure that they made that stealth detection system to allow for stealth openers even on snipers with 30 stacks, it only has some very special requirements: stealth talent, sneak, exfiltrate, positioning.

Stealth Detection - Stealth level = distance from where the sniper can spot you, but still he has to target and shoot at you to pop you out of stealth.

 

He has 30 stacks. You pop sneak, also talent +5 stealth from concealment (is it +5 now??). Come into 15m range from the sniper with 30 stacks. If you come closer, he will spot you. instead you scamper/exfiltrate 12m towards him, then immediately use hidden strike.

 

Theoretically if he has some crazy *** reactions he should be able to knock you back, but more often than not you will be able to safely open on the sniper regardless. You only dont have to mess up with the distance from where you scamper/exfiltrate towards him.

 

If you dont have +5 stealth talent taken, you are pretty much screwed. If you dont have sneaka available you cannot open on him. If you you have neither of these, you should never walk within the range of a sniper which has been sitting in cover for long enough. Especially as a healer or a sin tank, you will be spotted quite often if you are too close and careless.

 

Oh and stealth detection has a buff icon, you can see how many stacks he has by targeting the sniper.

 

See Ilmarinen how much i am doing for you, so that you could kill me?

cool, thanks for the explanation, i appreciate it...

Exfiltrate in action for longer-distance travel:

Exfiltrate in action for longer-distance travel:

 

Look how fast energy regens. Operatives are going to be so good imo. Exciting!

On the topic of stealth detection, we only have 3 levels of increased stealth in our talents trees at the moment. We may get more somewhere in the tree with 2.0, but I haven't been able to log in to check yet. From my experience, I have almost never been knocked out of stealh when I approach from behind, regardless of stealth level and whether the class I am approaching might have a stealth detection buff (other operatives, pts, tank sins for example.) From in front, with the the 3 levels of increased stealth detection but no sneak, I have been knocked out as far as 15 meters, though this may an issue with syncing, where I am closer to the target on my opponents screen than I am on theirs. It will be interesting to see how this will play out, but I suspect even with scamper/exfiltrate and sneak snipers should be able to pull us out of stealth if we approach from the front. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me if one could still approach from behind.

edit: To the OP or anyone else whose tried the PTR - have you been able to open on snipers/gs?

On the topic of stealth detection, we only have 3 levels of increased stealth in our talents trees at the moment. We may get more somewhere in the tree with 2.0, but I haven't been able to log in to check yet. From my experience, I have almost never been knocked out of stealh when I approach from behind, regardless of stealth level and whether the class I am approaching might have a stealth detection buff (other operatives, pts, tank sins for example.) From in front, with the the 3 levels of increased stealth detection but no sneak, I have been knocked out as far as 15 meters, though this may an issue with syncing, where I am closer to the target on my opponents screen than I am on theirs. It will be interesting to see how this will play out, but I suspect even with scamper/exfiltrate and sneak snipers should be able to pull us out of stealth if we approach from the front. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me if one could still approach from behind.

 

edit: To the OP or anyone else whose tried the PTR - have you been able to open on snipers/gs?

You will be able to open on them even with 30 stacks. Just as you said before...if you are dueling an assassin and you he pops his stealth detection and you are behind him...he still cant see you. We do it all the time in duels. This should be no different. I'm sure the sniper is going to have to at least be semi looking in the way you are approaching. If not, then its broken and should be fixed. If it is what I think it is, it will be fine. It will just require you to not hump their faces.