While I'm beyond pissed at the answers, it's not Courtney you should point the pitchforks at, she's merely relaying the information. It's the utterly clueless devs, who are too busy playing their Snipers, healops and Marauders to come here and take the discusion.

yeah maybe. All I know is whoever is doing BH class on the whole needs to be moved somwehere else. The entire class is suffering whether its heals, tank, or dps

Firstly, what a terrible first question from the PT/Van Community. Of course the Devs are going to waffle when you ask a stupid question like that and compare apples to oranges. What a waste of an opportunity to get some good feedback from the Devs.

We never intend for hybrids to outperform the 36-point builds, and this is exactly what we addressed in the 2.4 update. Players should now find that both Immolate and Thermal Detonator deal more damage than they did previously. In addition, the Pyrotech should see some of its burst make a return in 2.4. At your convenience, I highly encourage you to copy your Powertech over to the PTS and try out the new Advanced Prototype and Pyrotech builds, along with the hybrid builds. The 36 point builds should outperform the hybrids now.

If this truly is the case, then you guys are failing hard at AC balancing. Players are already pumping out parses on the PTS and Hybrids still rule. See this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=672176

The most obvious reason is that the Burnout skill does not get its full effect on a target dummy, because a target dummy never falls below 30% health.

This is the worst Dev response possibly in the history of SWTOR class balance responses. Burnout does not carry the weight of making up the huge DPS gap with other pure DPS classes, especially Sniper/Slingers. There are a multitude of shortfalls with this explanation as pointed out in this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=672176.

2.4 is bringing a DPS upgrade to both Vanguard damage dealing specializations, as well as a burst upgrade for Assault Specialists and a harder-hitting Fire Pulse for Tactics.

As far as I'm aware, there has been a DPS upgrade for PT/Vans in 2.4. However, it has not raised the bar significantly for Burst. Up front damage on the capstone skills have been improved some, but not enough to compete with the burst potential of other DPS classes. Again, see this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=672176

The questions from the PT/Van community were weak, but the Dev responses to them were absolutely clueless. Pretty disappointing.

While I'm beyond pissed at the answers, it's not Courtney you should point the pitchforks at, she's merely relaying the information. It's the utterly clueless devs, who are too busy playing their Snipers, healops and Marauders to come here and take the discusion.

I am just MAD because the answers provided are what I would have expected from some scrub in fleet general chat.

Like heavy armor? Ranged attacks? Still the same old <30% hp arguement? (*&*&&^*&%%%@#!#@ing ^(^$$$6222

I am just MAD because the answers provided are what I would have expected from some scrub in fleet general chat.

 

Like heavy armor? Ranged attacks? Still the same old <30% hp arguement? (*&*&&^*&%%%@#!#@ing ^(^$$$6222

And I don't blame you, I've had some rageposts as well by now, but I think it's important to direct it at the people resposible for this absolute joke.

While I'm beyond pissed at the answers, it's not Courtney you should point the pitchforks at, she's merely relaying the information. It's the utterly clueless devs, who are too busy playing their Snipers, healops and Marauders to come here and take the discusion.

As a CS rep, you can/should refuse to publish garbage for your company. As a former professional in the industry, I have in the past, or told them I'm not publishing their words, fixing it, and I require X,Y,Z from them.

Hell even in my current project management position, I've told the CEO of the company no, because it would ruin my/our relationship with a client and that we could do better than that. I still work here a year+ later.

So no, she's not to blame, but unless she is literally a secretary...she has some responsibility in its content, language, and positioning. Not to mention, followup.

WTH.....

Thanks for the fun Bioware i'm more convince than ever to leave this game

Thanks!

The answers are kind of lack luster here, just like with the Sorc questions.

 

Sure 2.4 has an overall buff to tactics and an arguable buff to Assault, but the buffs are a bit too conservative whereas I feel they need to be more gamechanging so that Vanguards/Powertechs get taken more seriously in PvP and PvE.

This is how I feel as well. I feel our arguments were weak, and Bioware just wasn't swayed. Combined with some poor timing of some minor improvements that allow Bioware to argue that we haven't fully tested the 2.4 changes yet, all the answers are depressing.

As a CS rep, you can/should refuse to publish garbage for your company. As a former professional in the industry, I have in the past, or told them I'm not publishing their words, fixing it, and I require X,Y,Z from them.

 

Hell even in my current project management position, I've told the CEO of the company no, because it would ruin my/our relationship with a client and that we could do better than that. I still work here a year+ later.

 

So no, she's not to blame, but unless she is literally a secretary...she has some responsibility in its content, language, and positioning. Not to mention, followup.

I think you should apply here then.

If you dare.... lol

I think you should apply here then.

 

 

If you dare.... lol

I doubt they could pay my salary. Also, I hate spending more than 2 weeks in Texas at a time. The bigotry gets to me, even in Austin.

So, Powertechs/vanguards are worst tanks and damage BECAUSE they can use 30m range auto attack and marauders and juggs cant?

Actually I would put PT/VG tanks as a close second, right behind Jugg/Guards. Really the only tanks that have a right complain are Sin/Shadows. And even then, they were ridiculously better than the other two tanks for over a year, so its hard to feel bad for them.

Wonder how the PT rep is feeling right now.. I mean seing this, it must seem like your questions doesn't really matter anyway.

I doubt they could pay my salary. Also, I hate spending more than 2 weeks in Texas at a time. The bigotry gets to me, even in Austin.

I'd take a guess that it's more that they wouldn't pay your salary. But this is pretty irrelevant other than for chest pounding reasons.

The answers are kind of lack luster here, just like with the Sorc questions.

 

Sure 2.4 has an overall buff to tactics and an arguable buff to Assault, but the buffs are a bit too conservative whereas I feel they need to be more gamechanging so that Vanguards/Powertechs get taken more seriously in PvP and PvE.

Oh ya, they're fooling people, they ask only to pretend they care. Only to deny later and say that people need to lear to play it. Intersting that the DEV team playing ARENA sucks.

They don't play his own game, i bet they all go to other game to have fun, probly they play wow, guild wars 2, rift.

IT'S A FACT BIOWARE DEV TEAM IS DUMB

I'd take a guess that it's more that they wouldn't pay your salary. But this is pretty irrelevant other than for chest pounding reasons.

No, he's not kidding. I made the mistake of driving through Midland/Odessa Texas on the way to Dallas for a job. I stopped for lunch, ate, and I walked back outside to find myself in the middle of a klan rally. Needless to say I did not return to Texas after that. This was what, five or six year ago?

The response is typical of the arrogant condescending attitude the devs have.

Derp derp! Comparing yourself to our favorite classes leads to disappointment!

No you idiot, FIGHTING other classes in PVP leads to disappointment, because the assault spec dies constantly with no defensive CD's.

It's not that the class is not fixed (I do play others), but when the devs tell me I have "perception problem," after the community gathers evidence and information, their is a serious problem. Even, if the community is wrong, the devs should have indulged us and explain why and how the class is not under performing, instead of this 30 meter crap, that if I used in the game general chat people would laugh at me.

It was wrong answer, wrong information, poorly worded. The only thing left was the devs to put middle finger in the response. Considering that I invested time and gathered data showing that the class is under performing, and so did others in the community, a detailed explanation was the bare minimum. This is unacceptable.

Unfortunately the only thing left is to vote with my money. I refuse to support such customer service. Yes, devs response to community questions/concerns is a part of the customer service package. This is garbage customer service. Do I feel entitled for an appropriate response? Maybe, since the devs promised one when the opened the door for community questions and the community spent time gathering evidence. Maybe next time get your devs to understand what the heck they are talking about before they talk and hire people who can write.

The road of comparison only leads to disappointment, and I believe many Guardians and Shadows are disappointed in their 30-meter range options, while Vanguards have many options when they are beyond melee range. Guardians and Shadows also can’t use Shoulder Cannon to damage enemies while they are stunned or to add a bit of extra burst when they aren’t stunned. Vanguards wear heavier armor than Shadows and have much better long-range capabilities than Guardians.

 

I believe many vanguards and powertechs are disappointed in their 4-10 meter range options, while Guardians and Shadows have many options when they are melee range. Silly me for thinking that I should try to play at melee range after the change to range of Incendinary Missile and Assault Plastique from 30 meters to 10 meters.

I guess I should just stay at range and kill everyone with full auto, mortar volley, heavy impact bolt, sticky grenade and spam explosive round till I run out of ammo when all of those previous abilities go on cooldown and surprisingly do not succeed in killing someone.

After all we are "lite" versions of commandos that can not afford huge cannons due to budget cuts and have to settle down for tiny blaster rifles made out of recycled scrap.

Please keep in mind that Assault Specialist will perform considerably worse on a target dummy than it does in a real combat situation. There are two primary reasons for this. The most obvious reason is that the Burnout skill does not get its full effect on a target dummy, because a target dummy never falls below 30% health. The less obvious reason is because only around 48% of an Assault Specialist’s damage ignores armor, while for Tactics this number is around 65%. This means that the Assault Specialist has more to gain in situations where an armor debuff is present on the target, as should be the case in an operation.[/color]

Assault specialist rotation abilites that ignore armor :

Dot from plasma cell, Pulse cannon, Ion pulse, Incendinary missile and dot effect from Assault Plastique

Abilities that are affected by armor :

Hammer Shot, Stockstrike, Heavy Impact Bolt and Initial Explosion from Assault Plastique

Watchman Sentinel rotation abilities that ignore armor :

Overload Saber and Cauterize

Watchman Sentinel abilities that are affected by armor :

Strike, Slash, Merciless Slash, Master Strike and Twin Saber Throw

So please tell me how can Watchman Sentinels who can not use their execute ability and have far more armor affected abilities included in their rotation can still parse higher than Assault Specialist on dummies ?

2.4 is bringing a DPS upgrade to both Vanguard damage dealing specializations, as well as a burst upgrade for Assault Specialists and a harder-hitting Fire Pulse for Tactics. These upgrades should make Vanguard damage dealers more competitive in PvP, with faster TTKs than before, and intrinsically more survivability because of that.

Changing plasma cell to not trigger 100% of the time from Ion Pulse but instead making it 100% from Stock Strike is a stealth reduction in Assault Specialist damage. It may not be a totally devastating one like the change to damage of Plasma Cell dot that happened at 2.0 but alas it is a negative change instead of a positive one.

Reduction of damage of Incendinary Missile in return for reduced ammo cost is a negative change as well when considering optimal Assault Specialist rotation would not fall below optimal ammo regeneration threshold too often to be offset by cooldowns of Reserve Powercell & Recharge Cells unless they got really unlucky with Ionic Accelerator procs and the fight does not include any AoE damage to refund cells through Into the Fray passive.

If the purpose of the changes to Incendinary Missile were to make ammo management easier while not reducing overall dps the proposed reduction in cost is too trivial to make a significant dent in ammo management to enable squeezing extra few non-hammer shot abilities into rotation.

If the purpose of the changes to Incendinary Missile were to discourage hybrids ( which I assume to be the case going by the changes to Gut as well ) then this should be done not at the expense of changing Incendinary Missile but making abilities higher up in the Tactics tree more appealing.

In other words, please do not break Incendinary Missile and thus Assault Specialist while trying to fix existing problems again because crashing Assault Specialist tree seems to be the only thing that has been consistent & successful in regards to the Advanced Class since the launch of 2.0 so far.

TL;DR : Give me back my DPS back or I will have Tanno Vikk fill my Bt-7 Thunderclap to the brim with Baradium, strap Treek to pilot's seat and and crash it to my subscription plan with such vigour that one time Sith gatecrashed into Jedi Temple at Coruscant with a transport ship will look like a gentle knock on the door.

I'm frankly insulted by the responses we received from the devs.

I wasn't sure the devs knew what they were doing with the class and now I am certain.

Vanguard class trailer

PTS changes are a nerf to their damage output as well as their so called ranged options. The only thing you succeeded at was discouraging the hybrid spec.

Do you understand why we were using Hybrid? Because of the poor design of the other two trees. We didn't want to use the hybrid, we were forced to use it because it is the only way to be compete with other DPS slots.

Vanguard class trailer

 

sums it up quite nicely. Wildstar can't come soon enough its clear that the devs are out of touch with BHs in general and couldnt give a care to the community that dared ask it such questions

Thirty meter options eh?

you mean hammer shot, sticky grande *which is pretty useless and not many competent vanguards will even use it unless coupling it with AP for alittle extra burst when they have the ammo to spar* explosive round *which no decent vanguard even has on his or her hot bars* Harpoon *which we save for clutch situations or offensive pull/defensive pulls* Full auto *which again is a joke does no damage and a waste of ammo any good vanguard drops it off their hot bars after like level 40*

Ya you do know you nerfed the range of this class like 6 patchs ago right????? Which in turn TOOK AWAY all useful options the class had at "RANGE"

All of our amazing "RANGE" options you speak of either do little to no damage making them NOT and i'll say it again so maybe you can understand cause you people seem slow NOT worth our ammo or we have to save them like Harpoon because its the only *********** utility our *********** class has while ever other *********** tank class has leaps sprints, pushes, knock backs, stealth.

Thanks for these 2.4 "buffs" I'm sure we will get killed JUST as fast as we do now by smashers, snipers and pretty much every other class under the sun in this joke of a game.

In all honesty you people who " balance" the classes in this game have a perception problem about how classes should and should NOT work IE SHOULD NOT AS IN A CLASS THAT CAN SMASH FOR 8K every 10 *********** seconds and on top of the 8k smash do around 4-5K splash damage to all enemy players around said smash.. OR maybe its true what your own community thinks of you and your so called "balance" devs just play favorites. At any rate.

Thank you for the answers just keep buffing snipers, guardians, shadows, and OP heals.

Its all your good at anyway......

Thirty meter options eh?

 

you mean hammer shot, sticky grande *which is pretty useless and not many competent vanguards will even use it unless coupling it with AP for alittle extra burst when they have the ammo to spar* explosive round *which no decent vanguard even has on his or her hot bars* Harpoon *which we save for clutch situations or offensive pull/defensive pulls* Full auto *which again is a joke does no damage and a waste of ammo any good vanguard drops it off their hot bars after like level 40*

 

Ya you do know you nerfed the range of this class like 6 patchs ago right????? Which in turn TOOK AWAY all useful options the class had at "RANGE"

 

All of our amazing "RANGE" options you speak of either do little to no damage making them NOT and i'll say it again so maybe you can understand cause you people seem slow NOT worth our ammo or we have to save them like Harpoon because its the only *********** utility our *********** class has while ever other *********** tank class has leaps sprints, pushes, knock backs, stealth.

 

 

 

Thanks for these 2.4 "buffs" I'm sure we will get killed JUST as fast as we do now by smashers, snipers and pretty much every other class under the sun in this joke of a game.

 

In all honesty you people who " balance" the classes in this game have a perception problem about how classes should and should NOT work IE SHOULD NOT AS IN A CLASS THAT CAN SMASH FOR 8K every 10 *********** seconds and on top of the 8k smash do around 4-5K splash damage to all enemy players around said smash.. OR maybe its true what your own community thinks of you and your so called "balance" devs just play favorites. At any rate.

 

Thank you for the answers just keep buffing snipers, guardians, shadows, and OP heals.

 

Its all your good at anyway......

Im convinced their class devs are all from warhammer where the same exact thing happened with warriors being supreme. This Q and A was an absolute waste of time and a joke just so BW could spit in the face of its BH community. I mean come on you can piss in my face all you want just dont try to tell me its raining