Class changes and balance in Game Update 1.3

Its really sad to see the Shadow/Assassin tanks getting nerfed like this. I'm sorry Bioware, you guys really should think about stuff before you speak on them. This change is obviously made for PvP... simple! But you guys "claim" you are trying to bring this spec down to par with the other tanking classes. We raid 3 nights a week, and we would rather have PT's or Juggs over Assassins. Even the 150% armor buff isn't enough to bring them up to par with other tanks... but instead you lower the armor by 35% lol. Really? 35%? And you guys claim this is supposed to be a small nerf?

Ok.. so the staple behind the Assassin tanking style to "bring them up to par" with the others tanks is self healing. So what do you guys do? Cut Dark Charge in half 50% (doesn't sound like a small nerf there does it? 50% lol) and reduce Harnessed Darkness to 8% down from 12%.

You guys are cowards! You claim this is for PvE but infact it has nothing more to do with than PvP. So you destroy any viability we have to satisfy some kids who can't play in WZ's..

lol this is a joke

Regardless of how players may feel (positively or negatively), this post was extremely insightful into how the changes were made and what the decision process was like. I look forward to many more posts like this in all areas of the game to help the players know what is going on in the minds' of the Devs. To anyone who may be reacting overly negative towards the combat changes: play some on the test domain to see how the changes are REALLY affecting the classes. If your thoughts are confirmed, then find a way to resolve the issue without having such a negative impact. A thought out argument with reasonable solutions will certainly have more of an impact on enacting change than a 10 word rage post. The other piece that we'll need are the hard numbers of how the changes are affecting combat, which means we need people playing on the PTS to get a good picture. Get a character copied over and I hope to see everyone enjoying the new patch.

It seems BioWare likes to make sweeping changes. You can't double nerf a class without looking at buffing a similar aspect of the class. This is what breaks them. Shadow Assassin's armor should be reduced, but their heals should be increased or stay the same. It took Blizzard a year or so to balance Death Knights properly as they have similar mechanics of Assassin's/Shadow's. I don't understand why BioWare doesn't do external research on game balances as well.

This is the same issue they did with Sorc/Sages, same issue Assassin's/Shadow's will have. And with Pre-Season coming up, some people are not going to be happy.

Bioware's usage of 'small changes' is now similar to their usage of 'coming soon'.

Tank Assassins needed to be brought inline. I am suprised that Marauders weren't looked into though. On paper it looks like they have done a good job with 1.3. Healers are actually getting an indirect buff with burst changes as well. I'm liking this patch so far, but only time will tell.

wait, what? where?

i've been looking for healer changes, but didn't see any?

He's talking about the nerfs to Warzone Adrenals "only reduces damage, doesn't increase it", and BioChem adrenals not working in WZs anymore. Yes, people won't be getting one/two-shotted anymore, but sage/sorc healers will still be interrupted beyond measure, and the buffs to AC's burst will be a lateral nerf/buff whatever you want to call it for sage/sorc healers. In turn we replace one problem with another.

Still less then any heavy armored jugger or powertech by atleast 1-2k armor rating.

Love the detailed notes on the update, we need this kind of information at least since we completely lack any metrics (combat log scavenger hunt aside).

I never had serious issues on my Jugg holding agro but thats just me. If you say kids are having a hard time tanking then who am I to argue. Though it would seem to me if theyre having trouble taunting/targeting/aoeing then they are still going to have trouble with it after this change. Im interested to see the shadow/assassin tank changes in action, but I am concerned the self healing will in no way make up for the loss of armor. Why not make dark charge (or whatever) scale armor as the player spends ability points in the tank tree? A 31 pt specced shadow/assassin tank needs some strong passive defenses if they are going to operate as a tank (especially in pve).

Wont say much for the lack of healer changes except I think that was the right decision. I dont have much luck killing healers even on my GS - I need to totally drop whatever Im doing, dump cooldowns, spend some time in cover to do real damage and even then I will usually run out of energy and interrupts and have to watch them heal through my auto attacks while I wait for the cycle to start over again. I literally did this for 5 mins with a sorc in Hutball yesterday - we had our own little duel right in the center while the battle raged around us. After 5 mins we just looked at each other and went separate ways as we obviously could not kill one another without outside help lol. If it werent for WZ medpacks and a couple of clutch heals I wouldnt even have lasted that long.

Despite that I actually think class balance is very good in this game. Which is why from day 1 I have been hooked on pvp here when I was not very interested in it with previous mmos.

i guess EA/BW will never learn.

how many healers left after the over the top healing nerfs?

now they want to make sin tanks run away too....

they're killing their own game with these stupid decisions...