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Analysis of the smashdemic


Yeochins

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Many people think smash is over-tuned. People arguing otherwise enjoy holding their crutch and are pointless to argue against. Where did smash go wrong? Well lets analyze some of the aspects of smash.

 

 

  • It is in the rage tree for both Juggernaughts and Marauders
  • A free critical is given to smash on use of obliterate and force-charge within 20 seconds
  • Stacks of shockwave increase the critical hit damage
  • Build up 4-5 stacks using force choke, beserk, or force-crush
  • Rage passive has a 30% armor penetration bonus
  • Rage passives add extra critical hit damage
  • Juggernaughts have the ability to use the "Unstoppable" passive in the Vengeance tree giving them CC immunity after force charge
  • Smash is instant
  • Smash hits 5 enemies within 5 meters

 

So what is the issue with smash?

 

Beserk setup

Unlike its force-choke counterpart, the Beserk setup for smash cannot be mitigated. When you have a well-coordinated team you can have allies interrupt force-choke, or a healer purge force-crush. This mitigates the number of stacks of shockwave they receive. A warrior with 1-2 stacks of shockwave deals considerably less damage than one with 4-5.

 

Instant-smash

In patch 1.5 they changed smashes mechanic to become instant. Unless you have a bubble ready to pop on the slightest bit of damage, or have very close to zero network latency (very low ping) you won't be able to stun the warrior who is immediately going to smash following the force-charge or obliterate.

 

The window for stopping a smash is no longer half a second as it was before. The 1 GCD you have to stop smash is consumed by the air-time animation of charge, and network latency (the smashers machine to the server, and then the server to you).

 

Leaps

Unlike their carnage counterparts, Rage gets a free leap for under 10 meters called obliterate. This was always the case, but was not as big of an issue when smash was not-instant. With both obliterate and force-charge there is nowhere you can go except out of sight. If you keep smash instant but remove obliterate, the class quickly falls in line with the other tree's (annihilation and carnage) in terms of shutting out damage.

 

This does not bode well for objectives in an objective based maps. Hence why smashers are very popular. They don't need to seek targets, the targets have to come to them or risk loosing the warzone.

 

Unstoppable

A hybrid juggernaught cannot be stopped from smashing. You need to shut him out when he builds his stacks.

 

Extra armor penetration

A now completely un-neccessary component of the tree. This was never a problem until smash became over-tuned because most players had the ability to shut-out rage-specced warriors right before they smashed. Now with the instant smash you need to stop the choke/crush setup instead. You cannot stop the beserk setup, except with heavy focus fire on the smash-warrior.

 

With the increased difficulty in stopping setup, and shutting out smashers, it is a wonder why they get extra armor penetration on top of the shockwave stacks. When you also factor in Juggernaughts ability to sunder armor, and marauders ability to use bloodlust it's over-tuned.

Edited by Yeochins
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You're stating facts without saying what the results are.

 

"Stealth is op'd because it lets you pick your targets and avoid ranged damage and cap objectives better than anyone without it." All of my points are true but that's not a real argument.

 

If you fight a smasher you and anyone right next to you (<5m) is probably going to get smashed by the hardest hitting attack in the game at least once. So?

Edited by WaywardOne
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If you're really dumb enough to take 12 points into vengeance and lose out on force crush for unstoppable, by all means do so. That gives you shockwave stacks every 40 secs for enrage and 1 minute for force choke :rolleyes:

 

Fail troll fails.

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Why do you even comment threads like this? Seems you are in denial.

 

I'm confused why you think tanks have the hardest hitting attack in the game. You don't even know what you are complaining about. So many complaints in this game come from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Hence the :rolleyes:

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I'm confused why you think tanks have the hardest hitting attack in the game. You don't even know what you are complaining about. So many complaints in this game come from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Hence the :rolleyes:

 

Please tell me what hits harder than smash.

 

The highest other abilities I have seen is my buddies Maul for 6.9k and a sniper for about the same.

Edited by JustinxDuff
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WAIT!

 

 

How do I get 5 stacks of shockwave again?? I want 5 stacks!!

 

Sure, smash when you hit 4 stacks using force crush, then get one with force crush's last tick. 5 total.

 

Deflect the argument away from the real issue, though.

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Please tell me what hits harder than smash.

 

The highest other abilities I have seen is my buddies Maul for 6.9k and a sniper for about the same.

 

A tank spec jugg is not a rage spec jugg. So no, a tank isn't getting the hardest hitting ability in game. :rolleyes:

 

For reference tank sins/shadows (with some DPS gear) can hit 5k on poorly geared toons with spinning strike.

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This is the bottom line:

 

Th hardest hitting ability in the game is from a tank, its instant, its an aoe, its an auto-crit, it has passive armor pen, it has a low CD.

 

How can anyone say with a straight face that this is OK?

 

If focus guardian/jug is a tank, then so is my infiltration shadow!!!! ohhhh can I be a tank too?!

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Please tell me what hits harder than smash.

 

The highest other abilities I have seen is my buddies Maul for 6.9k and a sniper for about the same.

 

Take a look in the other Smash QQ thread. There are screenshots of an Assassin who got a 10k+ hit. Guess they should be nerfed too huh? And FYI, my Sentinel isn't a tank. :rolleyes:

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A tank spec jugg is not a rage spec jugg. So no, a tank isn't getting the hardest hitting ability in game. :rolleyes:

 

For reference tank sins/shadows (with some DPS gear) can hit 5k on poorly geared toons with spinning strike.

 

Tank class not spec.

 

Sins are single target, no comparison. Look at the disparity in class popuations, why do you think so many people play warriors now? Hmm I wonder...

Edited by JustinxDuff
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WAIT!

 

 

How do I get 5 stacks of shockwave again?? I want 5 stacks!!

 

Well. I would really like to give you that (provided you will need those 5 to get the same amount of crit damage as you currently do with 4)

 

Tinkering with the amount of stacks needed for full effect might be a great way to down-tune Rage/Focus.

 

It's funny though that people pounce on the only factual error he made.

 

As long as smash spec rules supreme, I'll be rolling blind bubbles. There's a number of ways to counter smash.

 

1) roll a bubblehealer

2) roll a sniper/slinger

3) roll a pt/vg

4) roll a stealther

5) get in a premade with good pvpers

6) roll a smasher yourself (can't beat 'em? Join 'em!)

 

Alot of people complained that bubblespam was/is OP, when 1.4 hit, and should be changed, I agree to a degree (don't hit my sage too hard with the nerfbat again pls)

Quite a few people are complaining rage/focus is over the top and OP, I agree to a degree (Remember pre 1.2 sage/sorc AoE instaproc hybrids and double-proc healers, we took way too big a hit on our nerfs, I don't wish the same for other classes.)

 

Many people think smash is over-tuned. People arguing otherwise enjoy holding their crutch and are pointless to argue against. Where did smash go wrong? Well lets analyze some of the aspects of smash.

 

--- snip--- (see OP for details.)

So what is the issue with smash?

 

The OP presents a summary of the package offered by the focus/rage spec, furthermore he aknowledges the fact that it is offered in a shared tree making it available for one QUARTER of the total amount of classes in the game.

 

The issue is through his presentation quite self-evident if one has an ounce of reading comprehension.

 

--> The pure amount of people able to almost instantly be able to play the spec plus the inherent substantial benefit you get from playing it AND stacking it in warzones makes it overrepresented, overused and quite too effective to allow for an enjoyable warzone experience for people NOT playing the knight/sith warrior base class

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Tank class not spec.

 

Sins are single target, no comparison. Look at the disparity in class popuations, why do you think so many people play warriors now? Hmm I wonder...

 

So all Shadows should be healers? I could go on but lol...

 

 

Geared DPS Sage AoE 5k FiB/DF... similar CD, and range.... while smash needed to be toned down a bit, the population was "bad" before this because Mara/Sents were not toned down from 1.2.... They are at the center of most PvP problems...

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There is no "tank class." There are only classes that can spec tank.

 

A rage jugg is way squishier than my pure DPS sniper.

 

Taunts? Guards?

 

Thats a tank class, sorry bud.

 

When I played WAR my BG was 2-handed DPS but its still a tank class.

Edited by JustinxDuff
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