Unlike the vast majority of the posters in this thread, I have actually played a Consular Sage with melee attacks that scale with level/stats.

 

About a year ago, in early Beta, Consulars main stat was actually Presence. It boosted both healing output and companion effectiveness. This lead to a situation where Consulars could easily boost their companions into god-mode, and solo group-4 missions with ease. Melee attacks (including the free one), scaled with Willpower, so all you had to do was balance your two main stats (all the gear had both Presence and Willpower on it). During combat, you just sent in your uber-companion-tank, stood behind the mob(s), and meleed them to death (don't forget that you still had your full arsenal of healing and CC powers). This gameplay was both rediculous looking, and quite boring. I was nigh-unkillable in just about every PVE combat situation I came across.

 

Later on in Beta, they switched the Consular's main stat to Willpower only. Many players moved on to the next flavor of the month class (Trooper/BH). However, Consular melee attacks still scaled with willpower, and our mezz did not cause the mobs to heal over time. This led to Sages simply "turtling" against tough opponents, using Force efficient melee attacks and mezzing them to get time to heal up. Obviously, using our ranged DOT attacks would ruin this strategy. The developers again deemed this as not playing the class according to their vision, and changed it to the system we have now, where melee is not part of the Sage's toolset in any substantial way.

 

With a little background and perspective, some of you may see how overpowered this class could be with cheap, powerful melee added to our rediculously flexible skillset.

Thanks for the background information. Why did they remove all sage melee scaling with willpower instead of just reducing it?

The balance agrument doesnt hold water because even if Sage melee damage were doubled, it would still be only a fraction of the shadow or jedi knight. A reasonable buff to sage meelee damge would have zero effect on class balance in SWTOR.

I agree. We only have two melee based abilities, and none of them have any effect whatsoever. So, it's logical to make our abilities scale with our equipment, right?

The trolls in here are just irrational and fail.

I agree. We only have two melee based abilities, and none of them have any effect whatsoever. So, it's logical to make our abilities scale with our equipment, right?

 

The trolls in here are just irrational and fail.

Our current melee abilities scale with weapon damage but not with our key stat, willpower.

Im a Seer and love my class. And though I agree with some of the things the OP is trying to say, others I do not.

 

I do believe that sage should have a non-force using ranged attack to bolster force since all we have now is sacrafice (currently at work, so can't find out what the skill is exactly) which not only takes life but also destroys any regen we already have.

 

However, do I think we need willpower based melee attacks..no. lol if were at melee range, were dead. we have force sprint, 2-3 slow down cc's, 1 full cc, heals and force armor. we should be able to get away at least to the point of killing our opponent.

 

Also, i'd like to add, if we could throw some of our dots while not facing our opponent would make "keeping distance" soooo much easier. and manageable since in pvp, thats all we have for the most part.

When talented Resplendence, our crits from Healing Trance procs uses of Noble Sacrifice that don't degenerate force / spend health.

Unlike the vast majority of the posters in this thread, I have actually played a Consular Sage with melee attacks that scale with level/stats.

 

About a year ago, in early Beta, Consulars main stat was actually Presence. It boosted both healing output and companion effectiveness. This lead to a situation where Consulars could easily boost their companions into god-mode, and solo group-4 missions with ease. Melee attacks (including the free one), scaled with Willpower, so all you had to do was balance your two main stats (all the gear had both Presence and Willpower on it). During combat, you just sent in your uber-companion-tank, stood behind the mob(s), and meleed them to death (don't forget that you still had your full arsenal of healing and CC powers). This gameplay was both rediculous looking, and quite boring. I was nigh-unkillable in just about every PVE combat situation I came across.

 

Later on in Beta, they switched the Consular's main stat to Willpower only. Many players moved on to the next flavor of the month class (Trooper/BH). However, Consular melee attacks still scaled with willpower, and our mezz did not cause the mobs to heal over time. This led to Sages simply "turtling" against tough opponents, using Force efficient melee attacks and mezzing them to get time to heal up. Obviously, using our ranged DOT attacks would ruin this strategy. The developers again deemed this as not playing the class according to their vision, and changed it to the system we have now, where melee is not part of the Sage's toolset in any substantial way.

 

With a little background and perspective, some of you may see how overpowered this class could be with cheap, powerful melee added to our rediculously flexible skillset.

Make Double Strike scaling with Willpower a talent which also increases its cost making it not efficient in the long run. Problem solved.

Really, I am always puzzled by this "it would be clearly overpowered and I tell you why" statements. The balance of powers in every game design is achieved by calibrating various abilities and how they work, it's as simple as that. This game already has melee classes with some ranged abilities and ranged classes with some melee abilities, and they are balanced as far as they have been correctly designed to be so. The same could be for Sages and their single base class melee ability. Then you may not like the idea, and that's entirely legitimate, but it has nothing to do with something self-evident or necessary in itself.

Make Double Strike scaling with Willpower a talent which also increases its cost making it not efficient in the long run. Problem solved.

Really, I am always puzzled by this "it would be clearly overpowered and I tell you why" statements. The balance of powers in every game design is achieved by calibrating various abilities and how they work, it's as simple as that. This game already has melee classes with some ranged abilities and ranged classes with some melee abilities, and they are balanced as far as they have been correctly designed to be so. The same could be for Sages and their single base class melee ability. Then you may not like the idea, and that's entirely legitimate, but it has nothing to do with something self-evident or necessary in itself.

But it shouldn't require talent points at all. If the person you quoted was correct, then it seems to me that the nerf wasn't about melee attacks as much as it was about a "free" attack. Maybe they didn't want Seers to have a free attack that did any reasonable amount of damage. If that's the case, then the mechanics of the class were just bad to begin with.

Either way, it doesn't matter if the free attack was melee or ranged. The effect would have still been the same. A Seer could have his/her companion tank while dealing damage with a free attack and using their focus to heal their tanking companion. Bioware could have easily fixed this by adding something in the healing talents that reduces the amount of damage bonus Saber Strike receives from Willpower. That way we could have still gotten a damage bonus from Willpower for Double Strike.

Or they could have just applied a cost to "Saber Strike" for those who choose the Sage AC.

The difference between balance and telekinetic is hardly existent. I'd like to see balance being, well, balance between melee abilities and ranged ones. This would encourage sages that want more use of their lightsaber to spend points into balance. I see nothing wrong with a DPS class that must spend it's force and cooldowns and both melee and ranged abilities.

I agree.

The difference between balance and telekinetic is hardly existent. I'd like to see balance being, well, balance between melee abilities and ranged ones. This would encourage sages that want more use of their lightsaber to spend points into balance. I see nothing wrong with a DPS class that must spend it's force and cooldowns and both melee and ranged abilities.

There's nothing wrong with it, really. People in the sage forums are just insanely irrational, thinking everything that has the words "melee" in it are insanely overpowered and a blight on the entire universe.

Yes, I understand that sages are a "ranged class", however, the unending hatred and malice some people here have for anyone who DARES mention the words sage and melee in the same post completely baffles me. Did all the WoW forum trolls come to inhabit this forum alone?

What you are doing is imposing rules from classes from other games that do not apply to star wars. No, we are not mages. There are no mages in the star wars universe.

 

I am not looking for a huge buff. Maybe 10-20% damage which isnt much considering our current pitiful melee damage.

10-20%... that is what you want. In your initial post YOU said you were hitting a 5-6k mob for 50-100 damage. Well at the percent you want increased you will now be hitting for about 55-120 damage. That is all you want. Sounds like a pitiful amount to even be talking anymore about this topic.

I do agree though that I would like to see some sort of ranged saber attack in the game. Just think it would be cool.

There's nothing wrong with it, really. People in the sage forums are just insanely irrational, thinking everything that has the words "melee" in it are insanely overpowered and a blight on the entire universe.

 

Yes, I understand that sages are a "ranged class", however, the unending hatred and malice some people here have for anyone who DARES mention the words sage and melee in the same post completely baffles me. Did all the WoW forum trolls come to inhabit this forum alone?

I think you're blowing the reaction out of proportion. The better question is what purpose would putting in more melee focus serve if ranged will always be the better option for the class?

I'll tell you what the side effect of it is (that I imagine most people against it are assuming): new and/or bad players thinking the class IS a melee class and causing all kinds of issues in and out of game with those assumptions.

It's better to be streamlined towards what the class is designed to do, than give people "freedom" to make stupid choices and play wrong.

The Sage's resource pool is currently balanced against the other classes. Give them a "free" attack on par with other class's "free" base attacks, and you throw game balance all out of whack. You've now given the DPS Sage a free attack to help with the efficiency of their DPS.

Essentially, in order to give Sages "decent" melee damage on their saber attacks, BioWare would either have to:

A) increase the Force cost of every other Sage attack slightly, and/or

B) decrease the Sage's overall Force point regeneration rate.

These changes would be necessary to balance the class around this new option they would have to deal resource-free, constant damage to their enemy.

For every Sage that doesn't use melee, and has no wish to use melee, this change would not be beneficial. This would actually turn out to be a nerf to the class overall, because it would force the Sage to melee, just as every other class with a "Free" attack is inevitably forced to use it to fill the void while they are allowing their resource pools to regenerate. Since Sages are the squishiest class in melee range, they would be at a significant disadvantage should the class be balanced around melee viability.

-Macheath.

There's nothing wrong with it, really. People in the sage forums are just insanely irrational, thinking everything that has the words "melee" in it are insanely overpowered and a blight on the entire universe.

 

Yes, I understand that sages are a "ranged class", however, the unending hatred and malice some people here have for anyone who DARES mention the words sage and melee in the same post completely baffles me. Did all the WoW forum trolls come to inhabit this forum alone?

There's no need for Sages to melee. Use the Shadow if you want melee...unless what you are really saying is you want the ability to do everything the Shadow already can, plus heal? C'mon now, last thing we need is a god class to emerge and turn into a FoTM. We all know what eventually happens to FoTM specs.....

For all those who hate the idea of other sages being able to melee more effectively - how about

A ranged Force attack that scales with level and willpower, is instant cast and costs no Force to replace our saber strike. Since we're not supposed to melee.

For all those who hate the idea of other sages being able to melee more effectively - how about

 

A ranged Force attack that scales with level and willpower, is instant cast and costs no Force to replace our saber strike. Since we're not supposed to melee.

The offers the same challenges I brought up. Give the Sage a viable "free" attack, and you have to balance the class all over again around this new ability. The reason the other classes have free attacks in the first place is because of the way their resource pools work. They have small resource pools to begin with, and their regen decreases the lower the pool gets (except the Shadow/Assassin, which is a small pool, but with a flat regen.) So, they need to keep at least half resources at all times, or their efficiency drops off. This is why they all have free attacks, to maintain this balance. The Sage lacks this sort of mechanic, having a huge resource pool by comparison, on a flat regeneration rate.

Not to mention, this doesn't actually give the Sage a melee attack, which is the goal of many of those in favor of melee damage scaling with willpower.

-Macheath.

10. There is no precedent in lore for a lightsabre that is set on low or stun.

Actually yes there is. I don't know where Bioware got these glowing kendo shinai things from, but training sabers are normally just regular lightsabers with the containment field turned way up. They leave bruises and slight burns, but don't cause severe injuries.

Commonly thought to be low powered lightsabers, training lightsabers, also known as training sabers[1] and practice sabers, were actual lightsabers that possessed a highly intensified electromagnetic containment field which was far more difficult to penetrate than that of a standard lightsaber. Thus the energy which formed the blade was better contained and able to do far less damage, and would result in welts, bruises, and minor burns instead of amputation or death. This feature could be readjusted by a fully trained Jedi to enable a Knight or Master to utilize a trainee's weapon in emergencies. These types of lightsabers were commonly used by Jedi Initiates and younglings.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Training_lightsaber

Actually yes there is. I don't know where Bioware got these glowing kendo shinai things from, but training sabers are normally just regular lightsabers with the containment field turned way up. They leave bruises and slight burns, but don't cause severe injuries.

 

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Training_lightsaber

Please don't necro this thread, especially if you disagree with the OP. It was already hard enough to put down in the first place.

Necro bump for support.

I see no reason for Sages not to have this. Even if melee attacks were made stronger, it wouldn't be OP at all. It will give them an additional option without changing the overall effect.

Bump as well

this thread merits attention from the devs

Are the people against this even reading the OP? It clearly states that they don't want to make the base melee attacks make the sage melee a viable option. I do think that it should be based off the primary stat just like every other classes base attacks are. To keep it from being over powered devs just have to scale back the amount it affects dmg. If you think this is rediculous then keep in mind that both saber strike and double strike are not sage skills, they are consular skills and sages are consulars just like shadows are.

For all those are arguing against it are probably those other classes that want the "insert sword here for free xp" kills in pvp.

Still not enough? I concede. Leave it as it is, but in return make all base skills for all classes dmg scale to something not their main stat and you'll never hear a word about this from another sage.

I play many classes at level 50 so I feel I can talk with some authority (rather than the usual miopic "you killed my class and buffed all the others" knee-jerk balance reactions that pop up constantly).

I like my Sage, a lot. It's my most played toon. However, I never understood why there wasn't a useful free attack - all the other classes have one. Whether it should be ranged or not is a different question. As is stands I doubt any high level Sage even has them on their quickbars. I'm currently levelling a Sorc and they became useless after the first planet.

Another point to consider. BW is removing stunned attacks with 2.0 because of lack of use and ability bloat. I fail to believe that any Sage uses strike more than tumult. So, by that logic, those two basic melee skills should go too.

However, we needed to cut down on the ability bloat our Combat system has currently. These abilities had very specific functions, requirements and left a lot of new players confused about if they should place the it on their hotbar/hotkey it or even be using the ability at all. We see that these are the least used abilities by far in the game and if we can cut down on them and make it a little more streamlined it will help players across the board.[/Quote]

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5950924#post5950924

 

I don't know what would confuse a new MMO-playing Sage more, having a free kick on a stunned mob, or having a character who cannot utilise his main physical weapon effectively in any situation at all.

Are the people against this even reading the OP? It clearly states that they don't want to make the base melee attacks make the sage melee a viable option.

Then give me one good reason why you learn sabre strike and thrash as a neophyte inquisitor, what other AC has TWO basic attacks nerfed to the point of redundancy upon picking their AC. And why does the class description mention "deadly sabre attacks", if you're not supposed to use them?

Either way there's no good reason not to allow willpower on sabre attacks. End of.