Remove the acid blade activation skill - all hidden strikes and backstabs have that skill automatically added to it once it is trained in concealment (or remove the 10 energy it consumes) by removing the 10 energy it consumes it would allow opertives to pepper in an overload shot more frequently upping their dps to be on par with most classes

 

there may be times when you dont want to DoT your enemy, leave some room for a flashbang. I'd rather have this aspect under control.

there may be times when you dont want to DoT your enemy, leave some room for a flashbang. I'd rather have this aspect under control.

 

So make flashbang not break on OUR dots.

 

Acid Blade talent should automatically grant the bonus to hidden strike, backstab and also increase dot damage from corrosive dart. Personally I'd like this damage not to break flashbang but I appreciate some may find that OP, I've thought about it and 8 seconds of dots are hardly game breaking.

 

This would increase energy availability from not having to spend on AB and the dot damage increase sorts out our sustained whilst keeping our burst intact.

 

I'd also like to see backstab CD lowered but one change at a time

So make flashbang not break on OUR dots.

 

Acid Blade talent should automatically grant the bonus to hidden strike, backstab and also increase dot damage from corrosive dart. Personally I'd like this damage not to break flashbang but I appreciate some may find that OP, I've thought about it and 8 seconds of dots are hardly game breaking.

 

This would increase energy availability from not having to spend on AB and the dot damage increase sorts out our sustained whilst keeping our burst intact.

 

I'd also like to see backstab CD lowered but one change at a time

 

There's a lot of things they COULD do, but instead they wanna rush a new warzone in so that it can be bugged just in time for the holidays.

 

I read in another thread somewhere that its confirmed 1.7 has heavy class balancing. Idk how true that is...

there may be times when you dont want to DoT your enemy, leave some room for a flashbang. I'd rather have this aspect under control.

 

Yeah you are right, i forgot that even some pve encouters you need your dots off at some points, but no it should interupt flashbang if that is a LTP issue no offence

Edited December 10, 2012 by dego-harmonium

Acid Blade... So many things can be done to improve it, some good suggestions in this thread too.

 

You know what I don't get? Go home and try this tonight to confirm:

 

Acid Blade dips your vibroknife in acid, right? Why doesn't it require to have a vibroknife equipped?

 

1. Unequip your vibroknife and Acid Blade works

2. Reequip your vibroknife and unequip your blaster rifle. Now try Acid Blade, doesn't work.

 

Trivial, yes, but it only proves to me that BW doesn't know what they're doing.

Edited December 10, 2012 by randiesel

I think it mostly comes down to that concealment ops are very rare so they do not have a large group of people screaming at them but something as simple removing the energy cost from acid blade would be a HUGE buff for PVE

I think it mostly comes down to that concealment ops are very rare so they do not have a large group of people screaming at them

 

I think that's the problem.

 

Come time to talk about class balance, they'll go by the logs they have of all 20 people who still play concealment and say "No we see they're doing just fine, Trust in BioWare" and that'll be that.

 

They ignore these forums and at best come here to get a good laugh. Take into account the 90% of concealments who either have rerolled or gone Medic and you start to say "holy ****, there may actually be a problem."

Acid Blade... So many things can be done to improve it, some good suggestions in this thread too.

 

You know what I don't get? Go home and try this tonight to confirm:

 

Acid Blade dips your vibroknife in acid, right? Why doesn't it require to have a vibroknife equipped?

 

1. Unequip your vibroknife and Acid Blade works

2. Reequip your vibroknife and unequip your blaster rifle. Now try Acid Blade, doesn't work.

 

Trivial, yes, but it only proves to me that BW doesn't know what they're doing.

 

vibroknife is your offhand weapon , not your main weapon :S

 

i would love to see my vibroknife as a Weapon, that means visible all the time ! at least add a toggle >< so every1 can be happy Show Offhand as weapon [X] !!!

Edited December 10, 2012 by Warlyx

vibroknife is your offhand weapon , not your main weapon :S

 

i would love to see my vibroknife as MH weapon visible all the time !

 

Lol, I realize that. Just doesn't make sense :/

So now that we've looked at was has become the Operative, where can we go from here? In order to keep this thread alive, I feel it's important to begin to start a round-table discussion. I'll start with a simple question to everyone:

 

Why are you still playing a Concealment Operative? If you were and stopped, why?

Edited December 11, 2012 by KyoMamoru

So now that we've looked at was has become the Operative, where can we go from here? In order to keep this thread alive, I feel it's important to begin to start a round-table discussion. I'll start with a simple question to everyone:

 

Why are you still playing a Concealment Operative? If you were and stopped, why?

I'm playing a Concealment Operative because I started it AFTER the nerfs and didn't know any better. I haven't stopped because it's still fun to be a sneaky b****, and because I haven't hit level 50 yet. Once 50 rolls around, I'll probably retire it, as I don't have the patience to wait all day for a Group Finder queue to pop, and I don't have the skill to be a healer.

I use mine to heal mostly so thats why i play it, shame tho usually rogue classes put out the higher dps in MMO's

but the burst hidden strike was too much, you know we have to sneak up behind our target avoid aoe, or you could just roll a smash jugg, leap to them and do this http://i.imgur.com/MaMCv.jpg

I went healer already and I've been 50 less than a week >_> People talk too much crap on Op DPS and heals seem desperately needing at the hours I play.

and I don't have the skill to be a healer.

 

Speaking as a healer this made me giggle. Op healing in pve is not hard in the slightest :')

Speaking as a healer this made me giggle. Op healing in pve is not hard in the slightest :')

 

First day healing, and I know I'm not doing hard content but I could've practically DPS'd HM D7... Was bored out of my mind just jugging Probes.

Why are you still playing a Concealment Operative? If you were and stopped, why?

 

Been playing an Op since about June 2011 in Beta, went full concealment in about August 2011. Back then Acid Blade was a very bad direct damage attack w/ no armor pen buff.

 

I've seen our lows in beta, our highs at release, then once the FOTM crowed figured out our burst when buffed with adrenals, we saw the ultimate decline of the concealment as listed by the OP. Yet I stuck with him, even when denied raid spots because "DPS Ops just suck man, we won't beat the enrage timers. Respec heals or bring another DPS class."

 

I did respec heals a couple times after the spec was buffed, but always went back to concealment after a day or so. Never like playing healers before, so just didn't stick with it.

 

Why stick with a broken, nerfed class?

 

- It's a challenge, you need to bring your "A" game to every fight in order to compete. Being an underdog is fun...sometimes.

- I played mage/range classes in every MMO to date. I wanted to try what is usually the bane of those classes. So I did and loved it.

- No playtime, RL stuff, ect. need to now focus on one toon. When the game lauched it had minimal grind, especially compared to other MMO's. Then patch after patch, we see nothing but grind added to the game. So now, I am just sticking with the toon I had the most accomplishments on along with the most playtime.

 

I still can do fairly well with concealment, but it took a bit of adapting over the patches with some of the nerfs. Other were not so much a big deal for those of us that had alwyas played Ops and were not on the FOTM bandwagon.

 

Sadly no dev will ever respond to this thread, they never do. They are content letting Ops die out since we stunlocked so many players into cancelling.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Sivlar

Speaking as a healer

That's just it. Laugh all you want, I'VE NEVER HEALED BEFORE...mostly because I don't think I can handle being a noob healer in a HM FP, and getting all the rage from people calling me out on it.

That's just it. Laugh all you want, I'VE NEVER HEALED BEFORE...mostly because I don't think I can handle being a noob healer in a HM FP, and getting all the rage from people calling me out on it.

 

But it's not hard, as long as you aren't ridiculously stupid you'll be fine. I healed my first HM FP today and could practically DPS the entire time...

The problem with this class is not the burst, really. It's the fact that it can do the burst combined with such a strong stunlock. Nerfing the ability to stunlock, while returning some of the overall damage to the burst, might be a viable option, but simply giving that damage back without changing the stun is not an option.

 

Vanguard has better stunlock with Carbonize and Zappy Dart, whatever the real stun is called.

4 seconds + 2.5 seconds > 4 seconds + 1.5 seconds

Vanguard also does easier/higher burst spread over a bit longer due to needing predictable/reliable procs.

/argument

I play a Scrapper DPS so not op but we got a lovely invite from the OP figured I would add my piece.

 

I continue to play it because I love that character. I get that the DPS is down and sucks at the moment, but I am hoping and praying BW takes a look at the lack of Scrappers/ops in the end game content and makes a change. Also I like the challenge, taking on the underdog spot has really helped me get better at playing the game, nothing like having to prove yourself to get you at your best. Yeah, I have gotten kicked out of ops/raids before because of it but it comes with the times. No other DPS is as visceral and fun as Scrapper/concealment, and I don't want to give up that fun aspect just because people tell me "I can't DPS well". tell me I can't do it and I will prove you wrong... definitely a Smuggler attitude right? (All this is PvE btw... my PvP is bugged, would love to get back to doing it though)

 

-Ev'an

Edited December 13, 2012 by DuntaCoral

Thank you, OP - you completely nailed all the points, I think.

 

To be completely honest, I can understand the gripes that people have in PvP in regards to the concealment operative. No one likes that one in a million chance that they'll be that poor sap to get DPS'd down before they get to do anything. But we are hardly the only class which has this power anymore and lo' and behold, the same mechanics apply. Class stuns and goes into their respective faceroll strat of murder.

 

Yet, from what I understand there has been absolutely no measure taken against these playstyles, which obviously harkens back to the idea of, "Well. Operatives took it in the face because they were a smaller player population."

 

Yet, this still doesn't explain why there are still issues in PvE for the class. Why is Overload Shot so ridiculously lackluster? One would think with all the boosts it gets, it would be worth more than some sort of emergency burst button. (Which it barely functions as) Why does Meticulously Kept Blades increase sever tendon crit damage of all things? Did they just think, "Well damn, guys! We made this hybrid melee/ranged class and we named the last ability after their stabby stuff! Alas, we didn't give them much stabby stuff in the end!"

 

Ultimately, I think that ends up being the problem with the class. Lethality has traces of sniper in it, so it turns into this DoT hybrid spec which suffers less based on position, but Concealment? Concealment seems like they wanted to make us a full blown melee class, yet they couldn't go through with it - not one hundred percent, anyway. It would make sense (to me anyway) if they intend to make us more viable in PvE without turning everyone and their cousin (apparently) into ranting lunatics threatening to quit on the forums, it would seem like Lethality would be the tree to boost.

 

As for Concealment? Countless people have voiced ideas/opinions - be it boosts to Overload Shot or a reworking of the TA's for non-healing Operatives. The list goes on and we are closing in on a year since the game was released and so far? They've yet to even mention their plans for this class, which I'm sure a number of individuals find alarming, at the very least.

I started playing my op post 1.3 so really didn't know the class pre-nerfs. I still had (and still do have) a blast playing concealment, for me that is what matters. These days I tend to switch between heals and dps as the wz or fp/operation requires (thankyou free respec, and wh prices in 1.6, made finishing both sets of gear much easier). I do enjoy both, for different reasons though.

 

I very much like the proposed idea of having acid blade a passive ability that is atomatically applied when HS or BS is used, would help our energy management that little bit, and help our sustained dps.

 

My suggestion here though would be to lower the energy cost of corrosive dart, and let it be applied twice so it stacks. I think this could potentially fix BOTH concealment and lethality. It helps the sustained dps of both, would increase the burst of lethality (an extra poison effect for cull), but leaves the bursty opener of concealment alone, which was the 'problem' with ops.

Hallo fellow Operative Brethren, I play half the time a Scoundrel Scrapper and the other half Sawbones.

 

Sadly this post is coming because I was rejected from an Ops group for ECHM because Scoundrel DPS is supposed to be terrible (even though I at least manage to get past the Tanks in HM), I could hardly imagine how bad it is to try and be a scrapper/concealment player in even higher level content. You are seen and sometimes are a liability.

 

 

We have no great instant gap closer.

 

We have no great defensive cooldowns

 

We have no great mitigation

 

We have great burst

 

We have terrible sustained dps.

 

Skills in the close range dps tree to boost survivability are lackluster. The class has been nerfed into the group because of pvp problems that make our burst in PVE just great, not awesome.

 

A few solutions for this would be to increase the damage of vital shot in the higher tier skill points. Another idea would be to give a DOT or a proc to Hidden Strike/Blaster whip that would increase our sustained dps but not our burst.

 

Sadly I still play the class because I enjoy a challenge and melee dps from this class just clicks with me. Other ones are boring/easy mode and I get complacent and bored. Scoundrel dps requires constant rhythm to execute effectively unlike others that have you just stare at cooldowns or attack in a specific order.

You know what would be nice? If successful hits from behind an opponent reduced the cool down on our stealth break.

 

Why are you still playing a Concealment Operative? If you were and stopped, why?

 

I originally created my Operative because I knew it was going to be under played. I knew that everyone wanted to play a Light Saber wielder or a Bounty Hunter. The concept of the agent seemed great to me, and the story certainly made the trip to 50 enjoyable. Really, I didn't feel different from other DPS classes until I started to do end game operations. When I was first playing, it was exclusively with a group of real life friends. I constantly felt that I, being the best gamer of the group, was actually holding back my friends due to my class choice. Initially for Operations, I couldn't heal because two sorcerers were substantially better. Fortunately, healers were retooled, but now I was no longer looked at as a viable DPSer. At that point, all I could really do was heal for us. Eventually, the group of friends lost interest, and we all stopped playing.

 

When Free to play came around, I thought that maybe my class would have been fixed. Surely, such large imbalances couldn't stay for long, right? Or maybe, I was just playing the class wrong the entire time. So I reactivated. I spent every credit I had purchasing new barrels and mods. I was feeling confident as I was tearing through mobs in the daily areas, so I redownloaded the parser and gave it a shot.

 

The rush I was feeling, it was the same as if I had been an actual DPS class back in 1.2. At least now, I can feel powerful in Hard Mode flash points and daily zones. If this was a fighting game, I'd have already changed mains. Was the Agent story that good to make me this attached to a character? I guess so.

 

Nerf the story. >/

Edited December 16, 2012 by KyoMamoru

Why did i make a Ops because they are awesome.

 

When i first started playing the first thing i went for was a BH because well i think they are bad *** got it to 50 in about 3 days and got bored so i then rolled IA and i never looked back man the story and gameplay was some of the best i have ever played in any game.

 

Saddly though i'm getting to the end of my rope i keep waiting and waiting for BW to get off there arse's and fix this issue with the DPS but they seem to be fine with just sitting with their thumbs up there butts and let us rot while other class's are also suffering and some are better then ever but the worse thing is i know this is all because of PvP because we could insta kill when this first came out in PvP with our combo.

 

I play PvP every now and again and i'm doing ok in it so i would say they got PvP just right but the PvE side is hurting baddly with the changes and i'm getting tired of waiting my guild mates are all nearly BiS geared and i'm still in basic teir2 gear because i refuse to heal i don't want to heal in PvE i want to DPS and i still try and i can pull 1600DPS if i go all out full buffed and stimed with adrenals but my energy is shot to hell. I don't know how BW can just sit there while we are suffering in the PvE front while this was ment to be a PvE game when from the looks of it they seem to think it's a PvP game.