Duran'del here:

I wish we could use Flame Sweep to ignite Oil Slick. It doesn't make much sense to me that our flames can't ignite a pool of oil at our feet.

Maybe they should change oil slick's animation to something like Carbonize, but with black spray instead of gray. Right now it looks like you take a dump lol.

On topic: great questions. Hopefully we get some buffs instead of the devs just saying that its a perception issue(which it isn't)

Duran'del here:

 

I wish we could use Flame Sweep to ignite Oil Slick. It doesn't make much sense to me that our flames can't ignite a pool of oil at our feet.

 

Maybe they should change oil slick's animation to something like Carbonize, but with black spray instead of gray. Right now it looks like you take a dump lol.

 

On topic: great questions. Hopefully we get some buffs instead of the devs just saying that its a perception issue(which it isn't)

I've always wanted that, with Flamethrower or Sweep. Would look awesome.

I've always wanted that, with Flamethrower or Sweep. Would look awesome.

That sounds great and logical.

Speaking from an engineering stand point it would be a dot than direct damage.

I've always wanted that, with Flamethrower or Sweep. Would look awesome.

I love the idea, but it wouldn't carry over to our mirror class well (riot gas).

Electrified gas (maybe a thunderstorm).

Granted the questions are done but I think this would be a fun mechanic to theory craft (buffing PT tanks by adding onto existing abilities rather than just dumping on new ones).

Electrified gas (maybe a thunderstorm).

 

Granted the questions are done but I think this would be a fun mechanic to theory craft (buffing PT tanks by adding onto existing abilities rather than just dumping on new ones).

See: Titanfall.

http://titanfall.wikia.com/wiki/Electric_Smoke

See: Titanfall.

http://titanfall.wikia.com/wiki/Electric_Smoke

I hate it when I get rodeo'd as a Titan.

On topic: When are our questions being answered? Its been at least a week.

I hate it when I get rodeo'd as a Titan.

 

On topic: When are our questions being answered? Its been at least a week.

Eric responded that they will pass the questions Monday. I expect them to respond mid next week. Also, the PvP forums have lit up with FAQ. I have not seen posts pile-up so fast since H2F and perception problem. Dollars to donuts the moderators and the devs are really busy with that forum, which will take the rest of today, tomorrow, and probably some of early next week.

Didn't the marauders get their questions answered earlier than this?

Yeah. That's what bugs me...

Didn't the marauders get their questions answered earlier than this?

No it took over a week for the Combat Team to post the answers to the Marauders questions.

No it took over a week for the Combat Team to post the answers to the Marauders questions.

They never answer on a Thursday or Friday.

Remember what happened last time with 'heal to full' and 'perception problem'?

They don't want any more memes.

I agree Thrax, and as a powertech player (shieldtech) I'd like to weigh in on the current proposed questions.

1). PVE PT DPS issues.

DiliH have never really run with what would be called a "standard" composition in PvE progression, often with several advanced classes considered "unviable" at the time. Since TFB NiM we have run with a Powertech DPS and what we have witnessed certainly does not align with what seems to be the common consensus in this thread.

He runs full AP spec (sometimes pyro depending on the encounter) and on single target fights his burst is insane, often finishing off any mobs assigned to him in much the same time as a marauder or sniper while his sustained single target damage is often rivaling the top spots on fights like Nefra and Brontes. On any fight with adds present (Grob'thok, Zero, Draxus) his damage is second to none and on Draxus he is by far our most valuable DPS player. While dummy parses may not support this it is important to remember in an actual fight PT's will vent more heat through up close and personal and the general lack of PT's parsing compared to more popular classes like snipers will skew the average parse distribution in comparison. I will try and obtain some logs of our PTS kills to substantiate these claims when i get hold of our PT.

2). PVP tanking

I have little experience pvping and thus can't comment either way on these issues.

3). PT tanking.

While the issue of counter-synergy of high defense ratings are highlighted in DF NiM, especially on the first two bosses where running with abnormally high defense ratings is advisable I feel Powertech tanks face a bigger issue.

My main concern with PVE tank balance at this time is the complete lack of internal/elemental damage reduction of PT tanks (17%) compared to juggernauts (24%) and assasins (27%). On top of this our cooldown suite is entirely lacking in ways to deal with internal/elemental attacks when compared to Juggernauts and Assasins. This is most salient on Nightmare mode Brontes and her Arcing assault attack in addition to what will be high raid damage.

While Juggernauts and Assasins have many cooldowns to mitigate this damage powertechs only have energy shield (2 min CD). Oil slick only applies to melee/ranged damage, both shield/absorb and armor adrenals are useless and kolto overload is very poor for it's cooldown given the amount arcing assault hits for.

I would also like to know if this is intended to be our weak point as a tanking class given our superiority on melee/ranged encounters though I cannot throw the feeling that the other tanks are not as far behind on M/R attacks as we are on I/E fights.

If there is indeed a discrepancy here I would prefer some form of active mitigation with limited uptime rather than a passive resistance buff in order to balance it against our strengths, perhaps a small % I/E resistance tied to heat blast uptime. This allows it to be used on demand to smooth out the damage without overbuffing the class or detracting from the powerful cooldowns of the other classes.

Any thoughts or critiques?

I agree Thrax, and as a powertech player (shieldtech) I'd like to weigh in on the current proposed questions.

 

1). PVE PT DPS issues.

 

DiliH have never really run with what would be called a "standard" composition in PvE progression, often with several advanced classes considered "unviable" at the time. Since TFB NiM we have run with a Powertech DPS and what we have witnessed certainly does not align with what seems to be the common consensus in this thread.

He runs full AP spec (sometimes pyro depending on the encounter) and on single target fights his burst is insane, often finishing off any mobs assigned to him in much the same time as a marauder or sniper while his sustained single target damage is often rivaling the top spots on fights like Nefra and Brontes. On any fight with adds present (Grob'thok, Zero, Draxus) his damage is second to none and on Draxus he is by far our most valuable DPS player. While dummy parses may not support this it is important to remember in an actual fight PT's will vent more heat through up close and personal and then general lack of PT's parsing compared to more popular classes like snipers. I will try and obtain some logs of our PTS kills to substantiate these claims when i get hold of our PT.

 

2). PVP tanking

 

I have little experience pvping and thus can't comment either way on these issues.

 

3). PT tanking.

 

While the issue of counter-synergy of high defense ratings are highlighted in DF NiM, especially on the first two bosses where running with abnormally high defense ratings is advisable i feel Powertech tanks face a bigger issue.

My main concern with PVE tank balance at this time is the complete lack of internal/elemental damage reduction of PT tanks (17%) compared to juggernauts (24%) and assasins (27%). On top of this our cooldown suite is entirely lacking in ways to deal with internal/elemental attacks when compared to Juggernauts and Assasins. This is most salient on Nightmare mode Brontes and her Arcing assault attack in addition to what will be high raid damage.

While Juggernauts and Assasins have many cooldowns to mitigate this damage powertechs only have energy shield (2 min CD). Oil slick only applies to melee/ranged damage, both shield/absorb and armor adrenals are useless and kolto overload is very poor for it's cooldown given the amount arcing assault hits for.

I would also like to know if this is intended to be our weak point as a tanking class given our superiority on melee/ranged encounters though I cannot throw the feeling that the other tanks are not as far behind on M/R attacks as we are on I/E fights. If there is indeed a discrepancy here i would prefer some form of active mitigation with limited uptime rather than a passive resistance buff in order to balance it against our strengths, perhaps a small % I/E resistance tied to heat blast uptime. This allows it to be used on demand to smooth out the damage without overbuffing the class or detracting from the powerful cooldowns of the other classes.

 

Any thoughts or critiques?

Well the questions were already submitted

But weren't you the guys who got the world-first NiM DG kill using a Vengeance Juggernaut? I mean, if you can pull that off when Vengeance was worse than infiltration shadows, Im not surprised you've got an AP PT DPS whos blowing most people out of the water. Also we weren't saying 100% that PT DPS is too bad for end-game raids, its just that due to having a lower potential you need to be a significantly better player with a Pyro PT or AP PT than, say, a Pyro Merc or Hybrid Sniper, and I've seen more than one situation where people wouldn't take my Vanguard into a raid because it was a vanguard, then I swapped over to my sentinel (who is in worse gear) and they took me on straight away.

Thats what the DPS issues are implying.

Though I will admit that due to the shafting of orbital strike, the new Ops seem to provide mechanics that PTs can abuse more than others to make up for their lower damage (Nefra is a short fight, so you can just unload everything into her and the ammo issues will barely come up, Draxus, Grob'thok and C-Zero are full of adds, Grob'thok's bounce doesn't affect smart PTs, Brontes fight being full of burst phases allowing full power between bursts, Bestia being an add-heavy fight, Tyrans favoring mobility, Calphayus being burst-focused, and the PT being the perfect class for kiting raptus around in circles for the dread masters fight.)

Absolutely I agree with what you are saying. I think looking back over my post my intent was to try and dispel some of the bad press circling around powertech DPS. Alot of how PT DPS players are treated in game (much like your experiences) are due to a pervasive negative perception of what the class is able to achieve in the right hands.

I find it grossly misleading when people staunchly claim that the class is not capable of spectacular play and feel it would be fairer and much more helpful to the BH community as a whole to adopt a stance along the lines of "PT's are capable of amazing feats considering the current encounter design though to do so requires more input and awareness than would be expected for some other classes on average".

Taking that line allows us to ask why that is rather than just spread a myth that is detrimental to many PT dps'ers trying to work their way into raiding.

I apologise if that is already the thinking of many in the PT community (which seems the case from your reply) though I thought i would post given the current in game stigma I have seen recently both in game and several fan sites. Anyway thanks for your rapid and informative reply ^^

I agree Thrax, and as a powertech player (shieldtech) I'd like to weigh in on the current proposed questions.

 

1). PVE PT DPS issues.

 

DiliH have never really run with what would be called a "standard" composition in PvE progression, often with several advanced classes considered "unviable" at the time. Since TFB NiM we have run with a Powertech DPS and what we have witnessed certainly does not align with what seems to be the common consensus in this thread.

He runs full AP spec (sometimes pyro depending on the encounter) and on single target fights his burst is insane, often finishing off any mobs assigned to him in much the same time as a marauder or sniper while his sustained single target damage is often rivaling the top spots on fights like Nefra and Brontes. On any fight with adds present (Grob'thok, Zero, Draxus) his damage is second to none and on Draxus he is by far our most valuable DPS player. While dummy parses may not support this it is important to remember in an actual fight PT's will vent more heat through up close and personal and then general lack of PT's parsing compared to more popular classes like snipers. I will try and obtain some logs of our PTS kills to substantiate these claims when i get hold of our PT.

 

2). PVP tanking

 

I have little experience pvping and thus can't comment either way on these issues.

 

3). PT tanking.

 

While the issue of counter-synergy of high defense ratings are highlighted in DF NiM, especially on the first two bosses where running with abnormally high defense ratings is advisable i feel Powertech tanks face a bigger issue.

 

My main concern with PVE tank balance at this time is the complete lack of internal/elemental damage reduction of PT tanks (17%) compared to juggernauts (24%) and assasins (27%). On top of this our cooldown suite is entirely lacking in ways to deal with internal/elemental attacks when compared to Juggernauts and Assasins. This is most salient on Nightmare mode Brontes and her Arcing assault attack in addition to what will be high raid damage.

 

While Juggernauts and Assasins have many cooldowns to mitigate this damage powertechs only have energy shield (2 min CD). Oil slick only applies to melee/ranged damage, both shield/absorb and armor adrenals are useless and kolto overload is very poor for it's cooldown given the amount arcing assault hits for.

I would also like to know if this is intended to be our weak point as a tanking class given our superiority on melee/ranged encounters though I cannot throw the feeling that the other tanks are not as far behind on M/R attacks as we are on I/E fights.

If there is indeed a discrepancy here i would prefer some form of active mitigation with limited uptime rather than a passive resistance buff in order to balance it against our strengths, perhaps a small % I/E resistance tied to heat blast uptime. This allows it to be used on demand to smooth out the damage without overbuffing the class or detracting from the powerful cooldowns of the other classes.

 

Any thoughts or critiques?

You strike me as a very sensible and reasonable player.

I 100% agree with the tanking assessment in PvE. PT have no way to mitigate such types of damage (especially imminent burst damage like Sins and Juggs do!). I was really in favour of asking about PT cooldowns for tanks in such a way but I used my better judgement in that a new cooldown will not happen until a major expansion. I do however 100% agree with you about internal/elemental damage reduction. Try PvP arena tanking against 2 madness sorcs as a PT...its a joke - oil slick is an utterly useless skill in many encounters which makes me sad.

In regards to the PvE dps issue I also agree with you in some respects. Please be aware I haven't done any proper progression PvE since TFB was released but was a progression raider since launch before that. I can only go by what people tell me in PvE and almost everyone says it is underperforming. However, I believe all classes should be balanced around the top 5% of players and not the average Joe's. However, in saying that without being cocky I consider myself a very reasonable player at this game and when I parse I get lower on PT DPS compared to Carnage, Lethality, Concealment etc. Maybe my PvE parsing is a bit off cause I haven't done it in a while.

I am under a firm belief that all classes are extremely even in PvP at the moment and only very minor changes are needed at this point. When it comes to PvE i will leave it to guys like you to put the info out there. Bit disappointed you didn't come forward earlier...we could have really put some great questions together with your help to help or give the PvE guys a reality check.

You strike me as a very sensible and reasonable player.

 

I 100% agree with the tanking assessment in PvE. PT have no way to mitigate such types of damage (especially imminent burst damage like Sins and Juggs do!). I was really in favour of asking about PT cooldowns for tanks in such a way but I used my better judgement in that a new cooldown will not happen until a major expansion. I do however 100% agree with you about internal/elemental damage reduction. Try PvP arena tanking against 2 madness sorcs as a PT...its a joke - oil slick is an utterly useless skill in many encounters which makes me sad.

 

In regards to the PvE dps issue I also agree with you in some respects. Please be aware I haven't done any proper progression PvE since TFB was released but was a progression raider since launch before that. I can only go by what people tell me in PvE and almost everyone says it is underperforming. However, I believe all classes should be balanced around the top 5% of players and not the average Joe's. However, in saying that without being cocky I consider myself a very reasonable player at this game and when I parse I get lower on PT DPS compared to Carnage, Lethality, Concealment etc. Maybe my PvE parsing is a bit off cause I haven't done it in a while.

 

I am under a firm belief that all classes are extremely even in PvP at the moment and only very minor changes are needed at this point. When it comes to PvE i will leave it to guys like you to put the info out there. Bit disappointed you didn't come forward earlier...we could have really put some great questions together with your help to help or give the PvE guys a reality check.

After a lot of testing, i would definitly say that powertech tanks need some help for mitigating internal/elemental damage. The difference between powertechs and the other two tanking classes against abilities like arcing assault are definitly too big. (They are too good in fights like nefra, were they can provide oil slick for both tanks, but that's another point.)

I think PvE parsing is not that important for actual raids. AP Powertechs have the most aoe dps of any spec in the game (they outperform smash specs in aoe by a significant margin in pve), while having extremly good burst + they are one of the most tankiest dps specs.

In my opinion, you can't buff specs that deal 40% of their single target rotation in an aoe (Rage is at~30%), to the level of pure single target specs, unless you wanna screw up balance in both pvp and pve.

Pyro PTs parse quite okay (they are about 1% behind marksmann snipers, while having a lot less people that actually parse), while being able to do their complete rotation as instants and from range (big advantage for raids)

You strike me as a very sensible and reasonable player.

 

I 100% agree with the tanking assessment in PvE. PT have no way to mitigate such types of damage (especially imminent burst damage like Sins and Juggs do!). I was really in favour of asking about PT cooldowns for tanks in such a way but I used my better judgement in that a new cooldown will not happen until a major expansion. I do however 100% agree with you about internal/elemental damage reduction. Try PvP arena tanking against 2 madness sorcs as a PT...its a joke - oil slick is an utterly useless skill in many encounters which makes me sad.

 

In regards to the PvE dps issue I also agree with you in some respects. Please be aware I haven't done any proper progression PvE since TFB was released but was a progression raider since launch before that. I can only go by what people tell me in PvE and almost everyone says it is underperforming. However, I believe all classes should be balanced around the top 5% of players and not the average Joe's. However, in saying that without being cocky I consider myself a very reasonable player at this game and when I parse I get lower on PT DPS compared to Carnage, Lethality, Concealment etc. Maybe my PvE parsing is a bit off cause I haven't done it in a while.

 

I am under a firm belief that all classes are extremely even in PvP at the moment and only very minor changes are needed at this point. When it comes to PvE i will leave it to guys like you to put the info out there. Bit disappointed you didn't come forward earlier...we could have really put some great questions together with your help to help or give the PvE guys a reality check.

We seem to have stopped progression raiding around the same time, Kooz. My last serious raiding time was around NiM S&V/TFB release.

I think you did a great job formulating all of the questions together and hope the Devs give us more than perception problems and more No. These are things I've been wondering all along about my favorite class/spec/playstyle. . . especially in terms of PVP tanking.

After a lot of testing, i would definitly say that powertech tanks need some help for mitigating internal/elemental damage. The difference between powertechs and the other two tanking classes against abilities like arcing assault are definitly too big. (They are too good in fights like nefra, were they can provide oil slick for both tanks, but that's another point.)

You can't look only at a tank class' performance against one damage type. PT's fall behind Juggs and Sins on internal/elemental damage, but PT's vastly outperform Juggs and Sins on fights heavy on Force/Tech attacks that are Kinetic/Energy damage. As for the cooldowns, PT's are fine with what they have. What's getting out of line is how many Jugg tanks are getting with the addition of a free Enraged Defense heal. In 2.7 the balance will be that Juggs have too many cooldowns compared to both Sins and PTs (to the point where I think Jugg's class questions should ask for a nerf to their cooldowns).

You can't look only at a tank class' performance against one damage type. PT's fall behind Juggs and Sins on internal/elemental damage, but PT's vastly outperform Juggs and Sins on fights heavy on Force/Tech attacks that are Kinetic/Energy damage. As for the cooldowns, PT's are fine with what they have. What's getting out of line is how many Jugg tanks are getting with the addition of a free Enraged Defense heal. In 2.7 the balance will be that Juggs have too many cooldowns compared to both Sins and PTs (to the point where I think Jugg's class questions should ask for a nerf to their cooldowns).

PT's are not outperforming Juggs/Sins on f/t e/k damage. Sins and juggs both have a lot more cooldowns against these types of attacks + Sins have a better Shield * Absorb rating then Powertechs. Sins definitly have an edge over pts against f/t e/k damage.

We seem to have stopped progression raiding around the same time, Kooz. My last serious raiding time was around NiM S&V/TFB release.

 

I think you did a great job formulating all of the questions together and hope the Devs give us more than perception problems and more No. These are things I've been wondering all along about my favorite class/spec/playstyle. . . especially in terms of PVP tanking.

Yes, as a PvP tank I am sure you are aware of some of the shortcomings of the PT tank. Eg., mez ability and inability to mitigate internal/elemental. I will definitely play lots of PvP PT tank too Rahc if some of these issues are addressed.

So, when are we gonna get some answers?

Its only been a few days. Please have a little patience. 1 week won't kill us.

Its only been a few days. Please have a little patience. 1 week won't kill us.

Well, it has been 8 days. But considering the past history with these questions I'm not holding my breath for anything good. But will hold out hope.