I've read about all of the changes to classes/specs in 2.0, but didn't end up testing much on the pts.

What's being considered as the "FOTM" spec/class in 2.0 as of now? What rankings for PVE dps are people assuming?

I'm just wondering what classes I should be dusting off a bit for 2.0.

Loads of people crying that Sniper is FoTM, but it's really not.

For PvE, It may well be. Though, for PvP most classes got mobility buffs which have an obvious negative impact on Snipers.

There was parses going around and because someone parsed like 2.9k with Sniper with IDEAL conditions people seem to think it's overpowered. That being said, Marauder and Sniper are still the two that parse highest.

This would be my opinion based on seeing the information from the parses, and my own experience.

Melee:

1. Marauder

2A. Jugg

2B. Powertech

3A Assassin

3B. Operative

Ranged:

1. Sniper

2A. Sorc

2B. Merc

Snipers and Marauders will be the best dps, again. It used to be the case that you could throw in a powertech into the discussion for best dps, but it isn't the case now with the nerf.

Based on parses and theory crafting in the last available patch on the PTS, there are a couple things that are worth saying. First, *all* of the DPS appear to be within about 3% of the mean. That's really, really close to balanced, especially since different specs scale differently with gear and we have a lot of gear tiers ahead of us. Second, comparatively few people parsed on the PTS, so we have a fairly skewed sampling. This is well evidenced by the fact that Vanguards/PowerTechs were considered to be absolute bottom-tier until someone hit a parse that was really really good. We don't have any PvE data AT ALL on Focus/Rage spec Sentinel/Marauder. Basically, we need more data to be absolutely sure, but things look pretty close together.

Another thing to note is that there are one or two really anomalous classes that do strange things on certain fights. A great example of this is Saboteur/Engineering spec Gunslinger/Sniper, which is extremely OP on bosses with large hitboxes, and generally balanced on other bosses. It remains to be seen how things will shake out in the final patch.

With all that said, people are often interested in order within a balance group. Again, I stress that everyone here seems to be within about 3%, so really the differences aren't going to matter even for seriously hard-core progression.

• Gunslinger/Sniper (hybrid)
  
• Vanguard/Powertech (standard no-AP hybrid still seems best)
  
• Sentinel/Marauder (annihilation)
  
• Commando/Mercenary (arsenal)
  
• Sage/Sorc (lightning)
  
• Guardian/Jugg (vengeance)
  
• Scoundrel/Operative (lethality)
  
• Shadow/Assassin (madness)
  

This list does come with some caveats though. This list is based on *dummy* parses in largely-equivalent gear, not actual bosses. Because the low-end specs on this list tend to have talents and abilities which are significantly buffed by a full raid group, it is likely that things will draw even closer in a true boss fight. Most notably, shadows have the most potent execute talents of any class, which means their actual boss DPS is likely significantly higher. (though, hybrid gunslingers also get a really good set of executes, so they're probably even more powerful on an actual boss)

Overall, I think the important thing is this: no DPS class is unviable. You should take the class with the best player behind the keyboard and which provides the best synergy with your raid group. Don't go chasing the FOTM, because the gap between DPS ceilings just isn't that vast anymore.

Honestly, if I were to pick an 8 man raid group, I would probably have the following composition:

• Shadow Tank (highest threat and average mitigation, and best cooldowns for a lot of fights)
  
• Guardian Tank (best emergency cooldowns, very good control and mobility)
  
• Sage Healer (for, you know, the people other than the tank)
  
• Commando Healer (better burst heals than a scoundrel in 2.0)
  
• Hybrid Gunslinger (the shield is boss in 2.0, and the ST DPS is great)
  
• Gunnery Commando (off-heals and battle rez, armor debuff and good AoE)
  
• Watchman Sentinel (inspiration, transcendence, and very high ST DPS)
  
• Balance Shadow (decent AoE DPS for a melee, taunt, gap closer, and unaffected by movement)
  

I might switch out the Watchman for a Focus spec, depending on how Focus parses in 2.0 (again, we need more data). The weakest aspect of this group is target swapping and burst AoE (hence my leaning toward a Focus sentinel over Watchman).

@Keyboradninja

That post of yours was very informative indeed. What I would like to know now, though, was how well that "all specs are within 3% of each other" holds up for different specs of the same class, say for example a sharpshooter gunslinger compared to a hybrid one. Did Bioware manage good balancing here as well, or are the gaps bigger?

@Keyboradninja

 

That post of yours was very informative indeed. What I would like to know now, though, was how well that "all specs are within 3% of each other" holds up for different specs of the same class, say for example a sharpshooter gunslinger compared to a hybrid one. Did Bioware manage good balancing here as well, or are the gaps bigger?

It seems to still hold up! There are certainly specs that do better than others (hybrid out DPSes marksman and lethality, for example), but they're never so far ahead that you would feel like you *need* to take that spec in order to be optimal. Everything is really, really close.

Honestly, the only question mark I have right now is Focus Sentinels / Rage Marauders in PvE. There aren't very many of them (read: none), so it's really hard to get a decent sampling. No one even bothered to parse with the spec on the PTS, so we just don't have data. The only information I have comes from the one and only PvE focus sentinel I know, who was parsing over 2.3k DPS in Dread Guard gear at level 53 on level 50 bosses. Granted this is at a non-final level, but still, that seems pretty good. They certainly don't have any resource problems anymore…

Dps numbers have not come up yet but i think it's very difficult this time to make an ideal raid group.

Every class excels at a certain point and it will shine at a certain time.

Every class has it's awesome usefulness. Things are looking up .

 

Honestly, if I were to pick an 8 man raid group, I would probably have the following composition:

 

Commando Healer (better burst heals than a scoundrel in 2.0)

I ask this only because I have read a lot of your posts and see wisdom in many of the things you say. How do Commandos (Mercs) have better burst healing than Scoundrel (Operative)? Maybe I've just never grouped with a good one, but to my limited knowledge about merc healing the class has heat (ammo) management issues and a lot of short cooldowns on odd skills. I benched my merc healer long before level cap, perhaps too soon, due to the way the class handled early.

Are the base numbers on Merc (Commando) heals significantly larger than Ops (Soundrels) or is it by some other merit that they achieve higher burst (such as their move that burns stacks to gain bonus healing).

I'm currently gearing up a Sorc healer alt to see what it can do compared to my Operative. If Mercs are really as good as you say though, I might be inclined to finish leveling it as well.

I have both a Sage (Sorcerer) and Commando (Merc) Healer, the Sage being my main. Let me offer some insight, although KBN should be able to give you a much better view

Sages vs Commando Healing are two completely different worlds.

Sages excel at keeping the raid up, efficient big heals, but not so much at emergency healing. Basically when you hear a Sage healer saying "oh *****" your raid is likely to wipe -.-". We only have Force Bubbles (which locks you out of multiple use) and Benevolence (which is very force ineffective. Since this is my main I have since adapted to it and pre-empted damage from bosses, and with mental alacrity I feel this is no longer too much of a problem post 2.0, although others may not feel the same.

Commando Heals I am able to very quickly, in very little GCDs, top a tank up back to full pretty efficiently. I usually use a Advanced Medical Probe followed by a Medical Probe and a Bacta Infusion following one of those, and with the increased alacrity from the crits (which is almost on all the time if you Kolto Bomb enough people) allows you to work even faster. As for Energy management, don't be afraid to use the basic heal (Hammer Shots). The only time a Commando Heals says "oh *****" is when the entire raid gets hit.

Scoundrel is still an unknown territory to me.

All in all, I have worked side by side with all combination of healers, and I love all of them EXCEPT Commando/Commando combo -.-"

Based on parses and theory crafting in the last available patch on the PTS, there are a couple things that are worth saying. First, *all* of the DPS appear to be within about 3% of the mean. That's really, really close to balanced, especially since different specs scale differently with gear and we have a lot of gear tiers ahead of us. Second, comparatively few people parsed on the PTS, so we have a fairly skewed sampling. This is well evidenced by the fact that Vanguards/PowerTechs were considered to be absolute bottom-tier until someone hit a parse that was really really good. We don't have any PvE data AT ALL on Focus/Rage spec Sentinel/Marauder. Basically, we need more data to be absolutely sure, but things look pretty close together.

 

Another thing to note is that there are one or two really anomalous classes that do strange things on certain fights. A great example of this is Saboteur/Engineering spec Gunslinger/Sniper, which is extremely OP on bosses with large hitboxes, and generally balanced on other bosses. It remains to be seen how things will shake out in the final patch.

 

With all that said, people are often interested in order within a balance group. Again, I stress that everyone here seems to be within about 3%, so really the differences aren't going to matter even for seriously hard-core progression.

 

• Gunslinger/Sniper (hybrid)
  
• Vanguard/Powertech (standard no-AP hybrid still seems best)
  
• Sentinel/Marauder (annihilation)
  
• Commando/Mercenary (arsenal)
  
• Sage/Sorc (lightning)
  
• Guardian/Jugg (vengeance)
  
• Scoundrel/Operative (lethality)
  
• Shadow/Assassin (madness)
  

 

This list does come with some caveats though. This list is based on *dummy* parses in largely-equivalent gear, not actual bosses. Because the low-end specs on this list tend to have talents and abilities which are significantly buffed by a full raid group, it is likely that things will draw even closer in a true boss fight. Most notably, shadows have the most potent execute talents of any class, which means their actual boss DPS is likely significantly higher. (though, hybrid gunslingers also get a really good set of executes, so they're probably even more powerful on an actual boss)

 

Overall, I think the important thing is this: no DPS class is unviable. You should take the class with the best player behind the keyboard and which provides the best synergy with your raid group. Don't go chasing the FOTM, because the gap between DPS ceilings just isn't that vast anymore.

 

Honestly, if I were to pick an 8 man raid group, I would probably have the following composition:

 

• Shadow Tank (highest threat and average mitigation, and best cooldowns for a lot of fights)
  
• Guardian Tank (best emergency cooldowns, very good control and mobility)
  
• Sage Healer (for, you know, the people other than the tank)
  
• Commando Healer (better burst heals than a scoundrel in 2.0)
  
• Hybrid Gunslinger (the shield is boss in 2.0, and the ST DPS is great)
  
• Gunnery Commando (off-heals and battle rez, armor debuff and good AoE)
  
• Watchman Sentinel (inspiration, transcendence, and very high ST DPS)
  
• Balance Shadow (decent AoE DPS for a melee, taunt, gap closer, and unaffected by movement)
  

 

I might switch out the Watchman for a Focus spec, depending on how Focus parses in 2.0 (again, we need more data). The weakest aspect of this group is target swapping and burst AoE (hence my leaning toward a Focus sentinel over Watchman).

i would have to dissagree completely with you, on everything... in the rankings order it would prob go: Snipers (for now, until they fix the double exploit, ALL high parsing snipers are using it in torparse)... Marauders a little bit higher than Op... Sorc.... jug.. Merc... PT... Assassin... just compare torparse ranking, mostly top by exploiting snipers, good marauders, Dizella / invinc (Ops) and the eventual random Sorc or jug (stomach for example as sorc.).

as far as a Best Group Comp i would go:

Jugg / PT tank

sniper (spec depend on fight)

marauder carnage

op Leth

Ars Merc

Op/Sorc Healer.

my opinion

i would have to dissagree completely with you, on everything... in the rankings order it would prob go: Snipers (for now, until they fix the double exploit, ALL high parsing snipers are using it in torparse)... Marauders a little bit higher than Op... Sorc.... jug.. Merc... PT... Assassin... just compare torparse ranking, mostly top by exploiting snipers, good marauders, Dizella / invinc (Ops) and the eventual random Sorc or jug (stomach for example as sorc.).

 

as far as a Best Group Comp i would go:

 

Jugg / PT tank

 

sniper (spec depend on fight)

marauder carnage

op Leth

Ars Merc

 

Op/Sorc Healer.

 

my opinion

I agree that most of the top parses at the moment are making use of double stacking relics and should be taken with a grain of salt but I don't think its going to tweak the balance between the classes too much since that 'exploit' isn't restricted to certain classes.

My ideal raid makeup these days would be:

- Shadow Tank (Awesome threat gen and mechanic cheesing goodness)

- Guardian Tank (Much improved threat, heavy armor, best CDs and nearly as much mechanic cheesing at the Shadows)

- Sage Healer (Gooey puddle of goodness and bubbles)

- Commando or Scoundrel healer depending on the fight.

- Combat Sentinel (amazing burst and excellent sustained DPS along with all the Sentinel tools)

- Gunnery Commando (armor debuff, good DPS and offheals)

- Sharpshooter or Sab Gunslinger (excellent DPS, armor debuff and those Gunslinger tools)

- DPS Guardian or Vanguard (off taunt, ability to spec for AoE in add heavy fights, good DPS)

I agree that most of the top parses at the moment are making use of double stacking relics and should be taken with a grain of salt but I don't think its going to tweak the balance between the classes too much since that 'exploit' isn't restricted to certain classes.

 

My ideal raid makeup these days would be:

- Shadow Tank (Awesome threat gen and mechanic cheesing goodness)

- Guardian Tank (Much improved threat, heavy armor, best CDs and nearly as much mechanic cheesing at the Shadows)

- Sage Healer (Gooey puddle of goodness and bubbles)

- Commando or Scoundrel healer depending on the fight.

- Combat Sentinel (amazing burst and excellent sustained DPS along with all the Sentinel tools)

- Gunnery Commando (armor debuff, good DPS and offheals)

- Sharpshooter or Sab Gunslinger (excellent DPS, armor debuff and those Gunslinger tools)

- DPS Guardian or Vanguard (off taunt, ability to spec for AoE in add heavy fights, good DPS)

i disagree with the use of shadow/assassin tanks in ideal raid group simply because of lots of bad experiences with assassin tank that had the gear but still dropped in 3 hits from trash mobs, i would personally chose a pt tank over a assassin due to the increased damage reduction overall and they also have awesome threat gen if you use the right opening rotation(and of course the taunt with 30m range is awesome)

i disagree with the use of shadow/assassin tanks in ideal raid group simply because of lots of bad experiences with assassin tank that had the gear but still dropped in 3 hits from trash mobs, i would personally chose a pt tank over a assassin due to the increased damage reduction overall and they also have awesome threat gen if you use the right opening rotation(and of course the taunt with 30m range is awesome)

What does your anecdotal evidence have to do with the actual viability of the class?

A person could have grouped with nothing but awful marauders/snipers but that wouldn't change the fact that those 2 classes have the highest damage potential in the game.

i disagree with the use of shadow/assassin tanks in ideal raid group simply because of lots of bad experiences with assassin tank that had the gear but still dropped in 3 hits from trash mobs, i would personally chose a pt tank over a assassin due to the increased damage reduction overall and they also have awesome threat gen if you use the right opening rotation(and of course the taunt with 30m range is awesome)

First of all, all 3 tanks have a 30m range on taunt. The only taunt difference between Shadow/Guardian and Vanguard is the Shadow/Guardian AoE taunt are 15m radius centered on themselves while the Vanguard AoE is 15m radius centered on the targeted mob.

All 3 tanks now have awesome opening threat generation. Guardian threat spikes at Guardian Slash and Master Strike (~6s) in their rotation while Shadow threat spikes at Tk Throw (~10s) in theirs. Vanguard threat spikes at Stockstrike -> HiB (3s) in their rotation.

Guardian's provide the lovely steady damage profile for dealing with trash and heavy hitting bosses while Shadows have great averaged mitigation with a high spikiness. They also have all that mechanic cheesing goodness thanks to Resilience and Force Cloak which the Guardians now almost match with Saber Reflect.

On top of that, Shadows and Guardians have better CDs than the Vanguard so they are more able to deal with enrage or high damage situations. At the top of the game currently, Guardian and Shadow are just miles ahead of the Vanguard in everything except DTPS which is remarkably even between the 3.

i would have to dissagree completely with you, on everything... in the rankings order it would prob go: Snipers (for now, until they fix the double exploit, ALL high parsing snipers are using it in torparse)... Marauders a little bit higher than Op... Sorc.... jug.. Merc... PT... Assassin... just compare torparse ranking, mostly top by exploiting snipers, good marauders, Dizella / invinc (Ops) and the eventual random Sorc or jug (stomach for example as sorc.).

 

as far as a Best Group Comp i would go:

 

Jugg / PT tank

 

sniper (spec depend on fight)

marauder carnage

op Leth

Ars Merc

 

Op/Sorc Healer.

 

my opinion

Hard out there for the sorcs not abusing the relic glitch.